I hear what you're saying. I had the same problem when i first tried Node as well. A friend of mine, started using it for a project and then gave up for the same reasons you cite above.

How do you feel about Node.js now that we're on version 0.6? I've been dabbling with it again recently and found it to be maturer and much more stable. I also heard a quote (i cant remember from who) in a video saying that Node was now production ready?

I've even been using it on Windows and found it to be very well behaved indeed. Same goes for MongoDB for that matter.