Recently upgraded, considering downgrading...anyone else having these issues?

Question

Hi all,
So within the last month, before (and unfortunately, RIGHT before) my 3-year Apple Care expried, I belatedly made the decision to upgrade the RAM of my 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo refurb'd MacBook Pro to its 8GB max, in prep for upgrading to Mountain Lion from Snow Leopard (I was told by AppleCare that I could make such a jump no problem).
Frankly, as a whole since then, I have  NOT been entirely pleased:
1) While the notification system is convenient, I have yet to see the point/purpose of any of the new programs.
2) I REALLY dislike the new inconveniently disappearing/reappearing "scroll bar" that used to be on the right-hand side of all my web browser/word processing windows, which essentially forces me to search for it and/or use the "Down" arrow to scan through something, as opposed to just autmoatically being able to drag down to the bottom/halfway/etc mark, as I could before.
3) Finder's left-hand window--of my Favorites, and most importantly, connected Devices-- is almost as bad to navigate. Now, I seem to have to resize the whole window to find a flash drive I've just put in-- or, the Server icon at my job every morning-- wheras before, it seemed that they all just showed up automatically in Snow Leopard.
4) I also dislike how I can no longer automatically tell-- in any given Finder window-- exactly how much space is left on my Hard Drive or any External/Flash Drives, and instead have to "Get Info."
5) With the hidden boot partition-- and fortunately, I backed mine up to an external flash drive as well-- I can no longer be certain that I'm backing up my drive properly: the program I had been using, Carbon Copy Cloner (I've never been a fan of Time Machine, which from my admittedly limited experience is too simple and not that customizable) not only now costs money, but now gives me a variety of error messages... leaving me essentially looking for a new-- preferrably freeware-- backup program (suggestions?)
6) Perhaps most worrisome, I've noticed now that my computer is running louder, the drive acting faster, and getting hotter than it EVER did before (which you can understand is a major concern, in light of the backups issue). At least once, I've had to Force Quit Finder after the "Spinning Wheel" and NOT had it restart automatically, on another occasion, it wouldn't let me Restart my computer.
The 2nd party store that installed my new RAM casually recommended I invest in an internal Solid State Drive beforehand, but now, it seems almost like a requirement! And while I understand that switching out your old drive is ultimately probably a good investment to prolong the life of my MBP, when you consider that I only paid some $20 to upgrade to Mountain Lion and now have to potentially look at paying another $200 for a fast SSD that I didn't need before to keep my whole system up to speed, you can see how maybe I'm not getting the better end of the deal.
That said, I am strongly considering downgrading BACK to Snow Leopard... after all, I mainly use my computer for web-browsing, word processing, watching/ripping/burning CDs and DVDs, and some Avid/FCP work... and it seemed to do all of that OK on Snow Leopard.
Still, I'm already really concerned over how easily I can do that now... sure, I still have the original Snow Leopard Install DVD, sure, I've been backing up my drive with all the User content/files/text documents/photos/music/Mountain Lion programs/etc, but there's no guarantee that the programs I got (some of which friends installed) will still work afterwards... added to the fact that I'll probably now have to pay the Genius Bar guys/a 3rd party company to safely do the downgrade for me.
So: I am being hypersensitive? Am I the only one here who's noticed their MBP hard drive running faster after upgrading to Mountain Lion? Should I not be concerned, or not upgrade my HD? Is there ANY way to customize/deal with the browser/scroll bar/Finder issue complaints I mentioned? 
Please HELP!!

Answer 1

Upgrading from SL to Mt. Lion takes some getting accustomed to, but
some of your problems could be solved by configuring the preferences in the Finder,
for example:  Look at the list of changes from SL to Mt. Lion compiled by Pondini:
OSX Tips Mountain Lion Changes
OSX Tips Some Changes in Lion
2) I REALLY dislike the new inconveniently disappearing/reappearing "scroll bar"
Turn them on again permanently, only you will not get the arrows back, (System Preferences > Scrollbars > Always)
Now, I seem to have to resize the whole window to find a flash drive I've just put in-- or, the Server icon at my job every morning-- wheras before, it seemed that they all just showed up automatically in Snow Leopard.
You can collaps sections of the sidebar by toggling the "show/hide" button to the right of the caption, or option/drag the "Devices" brick of the sidebar to the top of the list.
4) I also dislike how I can no longer automatically tell-- in any given Finder window-- exactly how much space is left on my Hard Drive or any External/Flash Drives, and instead have to "Get Info."
Finder's main menu bar > View > Show Status Bar
Pondini's summaries will give you plenty of hints on how to tame the lions and to break them in to suit your needs.
Regards
Léonie