Many people have told me that ATPL is no harder than an A Level.
I'd say it's slightly harder, and certainly there's a heck of a lot to learn.
I think what perhaps didn't help your case (initially) was your idea was you could simply look up stuff as needed.
A pro will tell you he/she has to have at least a working knowledge of what probably totals up to a thousand pages or more of rules and regs in the various manuals - doesn't mean they need to know everything in each manual chapter and verse, but you do need to have recall of the really important stuff (e.g crosswind/airframe limits) and at least know enough about the books so that you can find out swiftly trivia like legit carriage of cats and dogs, or the symbols on high level met charts. (though I'd agree some of that's got easier these days with search functions on things like iPads).
So...I'd agree that knowing the details of station circles might seem trivial to someone heading for an ATPL but if nothing else it's a filter for the examiners to see to see who has the memory skills to retain info and who can't.