Right now, everyone is difficult to deal with.

But your experience is different to mine. Many of the "cheap cheap" agents require you to pay extra for any sort of customer service [the example below is from a test booking on Travelgenio's UK website] so you may find yourself struggling to make any meaningful contact with the agent; some are contactable only via premium-rate phone lines - so any savings over dealing with the airline directly usually evaporate; most Western airlines can, in normal times, be contacted on Twitter or social media for most queries, with reasonable response times.