How do I disable Mission Control in favor of old Spaces and Exposé?

Question

Spaces was my favorite feature from previous versions and now they upgraded (killed) it. I loved having a Space for each kind of activity, like browsing or email or system-related tasks, and so on. Now it’s all confusing and I still don’t know how to assign apps to a space. I don’t like either that you have to go over all of them to get to a specific one and there’s no easy way of recalling where -recently unassigned opened- your app was, you have to go thru Mission Control. It’s irritating.
I know you can go directly to a Space by using ^+the number or the space, but I liked way more the grid in which they were set up before.
The window management system OS X is one of the major things I choose this OS over all the other but now it's getting screwed up. It seems like an OS for iOS to Mac OS switchers. Is there some file or setting I have to edit like in Terminal? An app to buy? Anything.
I really appreciate your help.
UPDATE: I just learned how to assign applications to a space, from the application's dock menu, yet the fact that spaces are not fixed and you can easily close them by just clicking the X that on it, keeps me a little too uneasy.

Answer 1

Some people hate it, some like it. 
http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2011/07/mac-os-x-10-7.ars/6#window-manageme nt
At least now we can have up to 16 spaces.
Work in multiple spaces
When projects pile up and your desktop becomes cluttered, you can use Spaces to organize your windows into groups. For example, create a space for work, another for games, and a third for chatting and checking email messages.
Add one or more spaces
Enter Mission Control using one of these methods:
From a trackpad, swipe up using three or four fingers.
From the keyboard, press the Mission Control key. If your keyboard doesn’t have a Mission Control key, press F9 (Fn-F9 on portable keyboards).
Move the pointer toward the upper-right corner of your screen.
To add a space, click the Add button (+). You can add up to 16 spaces.
To leave Mission Control, swipe again, or press the key you used to enter Mission Control.
HideMove from one space to another
Do any of these:
Swipe left or right with three fingers to scroll through your spaces.
Enter Mission Control, and then click the space you want to use.
Press the Control key and the number key for the space you want. For example, press Control-3 to go to Desktop 3.
Press the Control key and an arrow key to scroll through the spaces.
HideMove a window from one space to another
Do any of these:
Drag the window to the edge of your screen and pause; after a moment, the window is switched to the next space.
Move the pointer over the window, and hold down the mouse button while pressing the Control key and an arrow or number key.
From the space that has the window you want to move, enter Mission Control. Then drag the window itself (not the thumbnail image) up to the space you want to use.
HideDecide which spaces to use with particular applications
If you work in multiple spaces, you can assign applications to particular spaces.
Press and hold an application’s icon in the Dock. You may have to first open the application from Launchpad to see its icon in the Dock.
From the shortcut menu that appears over the icon, choose one of these:
To have the application open only in the current space, choose Options > This Desktop. From now on the application will open in the current space; if you are working in a different space, the application’s space scrolls into view.
To have the application open in every space, choose Options > All Desktops. From now on, when the application is open it will appear in every space.
To have the application open in the whichever space you are currently using, choose Options > None.
In Mission Control preferences, you can specify that when switching to an application, your desktop should scroll to a space with open windows for that application.
Delete a space
Enter Mission Control using one of these methods:
From a trackpad, swipe up using three or four fingers.
From the keyboard, press the Mission Control key. If your keyboard doesn’t have a Mission Control key, press F9 (Fn-F9 on portable keyboards).
Move the pointer over the the space you want to delete. After a moment a delete button (x) appears on the space.
Click the delete button (x) to remove the space. If the space contains windows, the windows are moved to another space.