I have an 8.1 here at home. I could get a Gateway if i wanted.. I dont hate Gateway. I would get one but I dont want o hassle with Emunand, sysnand. backing up.. cia.. etc.. Its nothing personal.
See, I also thought it's going to be complicated... and I actually like complicated, that's why I bought Gateway, but this sysnand/emunand you're talking about turned out to be so simple that I was kind of disappointed a little.
First of all backing up sysnand is optional, and believe me if Sky3DS could implement such a feature they would, because why not ?All it does is back-up your system just in case, it's like having system restore on your windows in case you need a rollback.
Second, CIA is also not necessary, you can use the same drag and drop method with regular 3ds/3dz files, CIA is just an option you have, because it's just like installing an e-shop game, same as above Sky3DS team only wishes it could have this feature.
Emunand : Optional unless you're on 4.x version, pretty simple concept, you're creating a virtual system layer that acts like a real one that you can update to the latest version(9.4), with this you can go to e-shop and not worry about updating your main system.
Until now I only listed Optional features, now the necessary ones :
If you're on 4.x system :
Installing a one time only exploit using a R4 card, which takes around 10 seconds
Install Emunand, around 1-5 minutes.
Enjoy, you no longer need to take out your red gateway card out of the card slot(unless you want to add more games to the microsd)
If you're on 9.2 system :
Install an exploit using the browser (has to be redone every-time you turn off your 3ds or open your system settings).
Enjoy.
Also, people seem to be confusing "more features" with more complicated, hey if you don't want to cheat in your games, install cias, DevMenu, etc etc, you don't need to, just drag the .3ds files onto your micro sd and play them, no additional steps are required for region free, so you can drag any rom from any region.
Note that I'm not against Sky3DS, if you're on 9.4, I don't even think that you have any other option other than Sky3DS, but even if I was on the latest firmware I doubt I would be using Sky3DS, simply because I can't be confident in the longevity of the card, I don't want to buy a card every month, on the other hand Gateway has been around almost 2 years and have gone from very basic rom support to what they're right now supporting 9.2 version using the same 2 years old card.
And if CIA/DevMenu/Hombrew/Cheats/Emunand does not buy you over and even looks complicated to you, you don't have to use them, but maybe : quality/longevity, convenient rom menu, region free will.