Anyone else experiencing slow starts, slow app loads, stuck app on different monitors?

Question

I waited 4 months to upgrade my iMac 3.4 GHz i7 (late 2012) 32 GB DDR3 (so, no this isn't a memory issue) hoping the bugs would be worked out on the Mavericks OS, but no such luck.
Although there are a handful of enjoyable changes, the most noticable change is a step backwards in speed at start-up. Coupled with very slow app launches (despite recommended upgrades to those as well), the new system seems plagued with minor glitches:
1. Very slow start up and shut down.
2. Slow app launch - sometime the app is "open" but with windows are not responsive.
3. Random email account drops. One minute there's a warning, the next it's fine. But only one of mulitiple email accounts from the same third party.
4. The removal of iChat theater from iMessages.
5. Etc...
Anyone else having similar issues? Any idea of settings that may be adding to #1 and #2 (the priority issues)?
Apple?
30 years a loyalists and I'm saddened by the recent slew of issues accross all things Apple: iMac, OS, iPhone 5...

Answer 1

When you next have the problem, note the exact time: hour, minute, second.
If you have more than one user account, these instructions must be carried out as an administrator.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar.
Each message in the log begins with the date and time when it was entered. Scroll back to the time you noted above. Select the messages entered from then until the end of the episode, or until they start to repeat, whichever comes first. Copy the messages to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message (command-V).
The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of it useless for solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. In most cases, a few dozen lines are more than enough. It is never necessary or helpful to post more than about 100 lines. "The more, the better" is not the rule here.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Important: Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.