Symbols are a godsend when dealing with difficult crash reports. Have you ever tried walking through the process of analyzing one with an expert? It's a great way to level up your diagnosis skills.
Frankly, it’s not been much of an issue. I tend to be super-anal about Quality, and post-release crashes are rare as hen’s teeth; which makes the ones that do happen, more important to diagnose.
I usually get a general idea of where the crash happens, and scanning the source, has always shown me the issue.
Symbolicating a crash report is annoying but mostly mechanical (fwiw you can open them in Xcode and it will pull in all the dSYMs for you). Reading a crash report is an art.
