to your first point i think its a good idea to offer both if possible. Like hide the code behind an interface wysiwig-style but give users the option to also edit the code directly if they want to

These are basically block editors. The problem is more, regular users just arnt going to be doing it period.

It's basically a pyramid problem:

1 programmer will program all the things

2 power users will create all the forms from pieces of the programmers documents

999+ will use the output and never care about any of the rest

There's just minimal middle ground, and the only answer is to cater to all three but in Different ways