Demand for being judged by one's peers is Magna Carta level stuff, and it's also in the American constitution, so people clearly cared about it for centuries. You can see why in principle: the judge is a government official, and with your peers you should have more room for maneuver. I don't think that ensuring that judges are impartial and actually apply law is a solved problem at all. That "other countries manage without it just fine" is a big assumption, ignoring possible corruption and any number of pathologies.

I live in a no jury country and I would probably feel a tiny bit safer with a jury of my peers, even being aware that this also has plenty of flaws. (That being said, I do prefer European inquisitorial system of justice over the adversarial one -- the latter is present in Anglophone countries and prefers reaching a decision over establishing the truth of the matter.) Even in Poland, the hamfisted "reform" of justice that is fought over with the EU does have some nuance to it. The government wants to control the judges, which is obviously against any sane separation of powers, but the public perception is that the previous system of judge corporations was also corrupt.

I do think, at the face of it, that all jurors should be made aware about nullification.