I'm not entirely sure I follow. Is it that toolbars and menubars themselves suck, or the particular ones in emacs? (fwiw, I have them disabled and don't feel like I'm missing much. Reenable them every now and then to explore the "promoted" options of modes.)

I'm inclined to agree with the shell thing, though that is more of a property of the shell, isn't it?

And you've lost me on the names of files. What do you mean?

I certainly don't think you are using it wrong. I am extremely interested in how things have gotten worse. In particular, examples of how things were better would really help to understand. (And, no, you don't owe this to anyone. I would appreciate it, though.)