I don't think builders and marketers want to point that out when selling, and I gotta think rallies are partly to blame in that folks hear about the good times and mebbe miss the bad ones.

I've never sailed the stream but it sounds like a heckuva washing machine with opposing winds, the seas are doing the beating on the boat. In the Pacific, swells are more uniform with wind wave tops and can be huge but farther apart, not so steep often...though sometimes. In the lower Columbia we see steep, short chop and winds typically 20-30 against the current and that chop is nasty for any boat.