I feel like Apple is just trying to screw devs and power users over in a desperate attempt to pull in the iOS crowd. Simple things like crippling Exposé and Spaces, which would easily allow to me see all windows and quickly switch between them, to combine it in Mission Control (which is all flash and no substance), was the first thing that annoyed me. Seeing them push the App Store to the point that they're going to make it more difficult for developers to distribute their apps outside it is also worrying.
Also, I seriously never had a single crash or freeze before Lion, and I've been using OS X for a good 7 years or more. Since installing Lion, I've had frequent lockups with many so bad that I've had to force a shutdown countless times. As a whole, everything is obviously much slower and/or crippled with worthless glitter thrown on top.
One of their main selling points in Lion was trackpad gestures, which are definitely great on their laptops, but completely worthless when you want to use a decent mouse with your desktop. Thankfully I kept Snow Leopard on my iMac and it's my main work machine.
You're not alone in your frustration.