No offense but your comment is unintentionally humorous because you're asking all these sane questions blaming the mindless people who bought into IOTA, but you happen to be one of them as you describe yourself.
> This is absolutely insane and I can't believe this thing ever got traction.
It got traction because people--including yourself--bought into it without thinking much.
> It feels like hacks upon hacks upon hacks. It doesn't even work right! Did any of the people who bought these coins try to ever use them for anything?
Yeah, like yourself. You never actually tried to use the coins for anything until this point when you are now finally trying to "cash out".