Better to wait for a year or so?

Question

I have never been an early adopter of new system software, but for various reasons have made what seems to be a monumental error in installing Mavericks not long after its release. I suppose I optimistically assumed that the new OS would be mostly trouble free, with the learning ensuring no repeat of the few stumbles with Mountain Lion. So wrong! My first tragedy was the discovery that Mac no longer supports the use of external USB drives that I want to format for use with MS based devices (TVs, music systems etc). It seems the "free" OSX Mavericks comes at the cost of paying 3rd party developers to regain the functionality that my Mac once had. OK, I won't do that, so I relegated my laptop to being a work machine rather than an entertainment organiser, and spent some time copying all my movie and music files to an old PC.
However, my Mac is even failing as a work machine since Mavericks. It is only a few years old, and despite its 8GB of RAM since Mavericks takes an eternity to boot and shut down. It has also decided that it doesn't like the web - I now have an extremely variable connection, with constant messages telling me my Mac is "looking for Networks". I have tried the various fixes for both problems suggested in many threads here, plus a few more from other sites. No joy. Just a waste of a few days. And the problem is indeed with Mavericks, as nothing else has changed on my laptop other than the OSX. Meanwhile, my girlfriend is sitting opposite me as I write flying through websites and watching Youtube on her ancient little ASUS. My laptop cost about 4 times what hers did, but hers is running about 4 times faster than mine.
So, I wonder if being an early adopter of system software updates is a smart move. Perhaps it is better to wait a year or so until others (ie more technologically literate guinea pig types) have fought their way through the pitfalls that are still left over once the engineers have signed off on the beta versions?

Answer 1

Thanks Arthur - I do appreciate that you (and others on this forum) give time to fix issues. I wasn't even aware that EtreCheck was the clever little program that generated all of those extensive machine profiles that people use on this site. So, for what its worth, here is the EtreCheck report. I hope it has some glaringly obvious (for you) error that I can fix with a few quick deletes.
Hardware Information:
          MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2009)
          MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro5,5
          1 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU: 2 cores
          8 GB RAM
Video Information:
          NVIDIA GeForce 9400M - VRAM: 256 MB
Audio Plug-ins:
          BluetoothAudioPlugIn: Version: 1.0
          AirPlay: Version: 1.9
          AppleAVBAudio: Version: 2.0.0
          iSightAudio: Version: 7.7.3
System Software:
          OS X 10.9 (13A603) - Uptime: 0 days 0:3:10
Disk Information:
          Hitachi HTS545016B9SA02 disk0 : (160.04 GB)
                    EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB
                    Macintosh HD (disk0s2) /: 159.18 GB (14.45 GB free)
                    Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB
          HL-DT-ST DVDRW  GS23N 
USB Information:
          Apple Inc. Built-in iSight
          Apple Internal Memory Card Reader
          Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad
          Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver
          Logitech USB Receiver
          Apple Inc. BRCM2046 Hub
                    Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller
FireWire Information:
Thunderbolt Information:
Kernel Extensions:
Problem System Launch Daemons:
Problem System Launch Agents:
Launch Daemons:
          [loaded] com.freemacsoft.appcleanerd.plist
          [loaded] com.sharpcast.xfsmond.plist
Launch Agents:
User Launch Agents:
          [not loaded] com.UninstallerTool.plist
          [not loaded] com.VolumeWatcherTool.plist
User Login Items:
          Backup Engine
          Android File Transfer Agent
          SugarSync Manager
          AppCleaner Helper
3rd Party Preference Panes:
          Flash Player
          Flip4Mac WMV
          FUSE for OS X (OSXFUSE)
          Paragon NTFS for Mac ® OS X
Internet Plug-ins:
          Default Browser.plugin
          Flash Player.plugin
          FlashPlayer-10.6.plugin
          Flip4Mac WMV Plugin.plugin
          JavaAppletPlugin.plugin
          QuickTime Plugin.plugin
          SharePointBrowserPlugin.plugin
          Silverlight.plugin
User Internet Plug-ins:
          fbplugin_1_0_1.plugin
          Picasa.plugin
Bad Fonts:
          None
Time Machine:
          Skip System Files: NO
          Auto backup: NO
          Time Machine not configured!
Top Processes by CPU:
              14%          Microsoft Word
              10%          SugarSyncManager
               5%          WindowServer
               2%          EtreCheck
               1%          hidd
               0%          Safari
               0%          fontd
               0%          com.apple.WebKit.WebContent
               0%          mds
               0%          mds_stores
Top Processes by Memory:
          123 MB             com.apple.IconServicesAgent
          93 MB              com.apple.WebKit.WebContent
          59 MB              Microsoft Word
          41 MB              Safari
          41 MB              Finder
          33 MB              SugarSyncManager
          33 MB              com.apple.WebKit.Networking
          31 MB              WindowServer
          25 MB              mds
          25 MB              PluginProcess
Virtual Memory Statistics:
          5.77 GB            Free RAM
          1.30 GB            Active RAM
          204 MB             Inactive RAM
          496 MB             Wired RAM
          221 MB             Page-ins
          0 B                Page-outs