Coupling a motor straight to the load buys zero backlash and the fastest possible response — but only if you're willing to pay for a motor big enough to deliver the full torque on its own.
Every rotary actuator has to solve the same problem: get the right amount of torque, at the right speed, to the load. There are exactly two architectures for doing that. A direct-drive system bolts the motor's shaft straight to the load, with nothing in between. A geared motor systemputs a gearbox between a smaller, faster motor and the load, and lets the gearbox do the work of converting speed into torque. Neither one is the "upgraded" version of the other — they're a genuine engineering tradeoff, and which one is correct depends entirely on what the application actually needs.