Summary of Lion Issues

Question

After a failed attempt to restore my early 2009 Mac Pro to Snow Leopard (wasting many hours of time from my business), I am forced to return to Lion OS and all of the negatives associated with this "downgrade."
There is likely little I have to say that is new, but I think all irritated Lion users should post on sites like these so that perhaps Apple will wake up to the fact that they have aggravated many of their most loyal customers and that they MUST resolve some of these issues.  I noted that Apple resently released a customer satisfation poll, but failed to even mention Lion, an indicator that they are clueless about the impact this flawed release is having on many of their users, or worse that they know and just do not care.
To be fair, I cannot claim that all issues are the fault of the Lion upgrade, but my software is 100% current, I am a very knowledable user, and I maintain my system regularly.  I do not use Time Machine, although I am rethinking this decision.  A trusted vendor convinced e that TM was flawed and that it s a waste of time.  I do daily backups to a dedicated internal drive, by my backup software does not do incremental saves.  It writes a bootable backup with the existing software, so once I went to Lion and did my first backup, I was stuck. The folowing issues are in no particular order of significance:
- After having problems with Safari, I dragged it to the trash and hit delete.  I had no idea that it only loads under SL OS, so Safari is dead.  I now use Chromium.  I have read about Lion restore, but why did not Apple immediately release a working Lion download of Safari?  This is a thoughtless oversight that is simply driving users to competing browers.  I may never go back to Safari as my default browser.
- When Safari was running, its handling of Cookies was absurd.  The third party block not only does not work, Safari picks up Cookies from websites visited both from other browsers and even (apparently) from other computers (even PCs) on our network. 
- When Safari was opened, I had to deal with a resend form window most (every?) time I used the browser.
- Every time I shut down my computer I have to uncheck the dialog box regarding how the computer will start back up.  Why not remember my selection?
- Apple seemingly goes out of its way to make sure Windows can play on my Mac, but shuts down Rosetta.  This cost me several software applications some of which are not doing upgrades, along with the expense of retaining software that did do Lion specific upgrades.  The most critical loss being my decade plus of Quicken files.  During my attempt to revert back to Snow leopard, I neglected to save my Quicken data files, which means years of valuable business and home data was lost for good.  This was of course my fault, but given all of the unused computing power in this Mac Pro, why Rosetta had to be dropped is beyond me.
- My preferences for certain applications are lost peridically.  My Kensignton trackball for example, loses its prefences about once a week.
- My passwords for certain applications are lost periodically.  This happens mainly in browser software.
- The Mail folders were hidden, altghough I hae since learned this was down in SL, prior to the release of Lion.  I have read other useful folders were also hideden, but mail downloads is something I looked at every week.  I learned online how to turn the hiding off, but am perplexed why Apple decided I no longer needed to see these files.
- My computer clearly runs slower now.  How any OS could slow down a computer with eight CPU cores and 16GB of memory is beyond me.
- iCal calendar window colapses when I need it open.  Again I have to wonder why Apple would decide I don't need this window open all the time.  When I do my monthly planning, I want this window OPEN.
- iCal day view is ruined. 
- iCal often defaults to "all day" for an event.  This requires me to drag down these events into the hourly area, one at a time.
- iCal event overlap makes it harder to grab an event that is now more hidden by another event.  Why?
- When I select a window in Finder, sometimes the application does not change until I point to the window multiple times.
- Sometimes when I open a MS Office file, a different file opens, usually the last one I used with the application.
- Spell check often substitutes the wrong word, making a document or email sound idiotic.  I believe (but am not certain) that previously a word substitute was offered to me as an option.
The bottom line is that Apple sold me an upgrade with almost zero benefits, which cost me and my business hours and hours of down time, along with the lose of critical files, along with the loss of often used software, along with the cost of upgrades.  This "inexpense" software "upgrade" cost me at least a thousand dollars and permanent loss of priceless financial records (again, my error, but due to the upgrade being released).  All this mess so that my OS is dumbed down to work better with smart phones and iPads -- neither of which I own. 
A Mac Pro is one of the most overpriced computers sold today.  Why does Apple knowingly impact desktop and laptop users, to appease the latecomers who use phones and Pads?  I have been here since the SE/30.  How did I drop to the bottom of the priority list?
This Lion mess, along with iPhoto upgrades that wiped out several years of family memories and iTunes software geared to maximise profits, not user satisfaction, have me wary of my old trusted friend Apple.  I feel abused and I wish that all who have experienced similar issue would rasie some **** about it so we get the attention we deserve.

Answer 1

DTDunn wrote:
After a failed attempt to restore my early 2009 Mac Pro to Snow Leopard (wasting many hours of time from my business), I am forced to return to Lion OS and all of the negatives associated with this "downgrade."
I'm curious how you would "attempt" to install SL, and how such an "attempt" could possibly fail?
You boot from the SL disc that came with your machine, you erase the HD, you install SL.  Then you restore your applications and your data files from your backup.
Oh, wait, you don't think your critical files need to be backed up.  That's why you "lost" them.
But you'd still have an SL machine again.
Endless solutions for users (some bone-stupid and near impossible to screw up) to ensure that they had backups and could easily revert... *free* solutions... and the people who couldn't be bothered to take advantage of them want to blame *Apple*?  *** were you going to do if someone broke in and stole the machine?  What were you going to do when the HD died (HD's *always* die).
People who claim to depend on machines, and don't make backups, deserve what happens to them.
So.  If it's important to return to SL on this machine, detail why you think you can't, so people can help you.