Over time, I think you either get acclimated to the pain or the hairs do get easier to pull out, because completely aside from there being fewer at any given time, the pain does seem to decrease. Doing my legs now, I hardly notice it. (On the other hand, my underarms still smart, but they aren’t easy to do to begin with.)
There are a lot of products out there designed to reduce pain from sunburn and the like, and I’d think that using one of those would at least clear up the aftereffects… the actual pain during the process, I don’t know.