Personally I wouldn’t say commuting was very difficult as such, it’s just a complete faff and constant source of hassle to be perpetually booking flights and hotels. That’s why SH is particularly bad for it because the number of hotels you will need is significantly higher than on LH.
(As an aside this is where the company are going to have particular difficulty convincing mid seniority FOs like myself to bid for SH command regardless of whatever HPtE brings. Personally and I can speak for a lot of others, as commuters it’s not about money it’s 100% lifestyle. You can incentivise me with as much money as you like or cap me at a lower paypoint if you’re trying to coerce me, I will simply never go back to Short Haul).