So to summarize:

1. Everything I said, aside from page loading weirdness, is correct
2. Opera already knows about these complaints, and
3. apparently doesn't plan to do anything about them

Would that be accurate?

I have been using Opera since Opera 5 and have loved it. The speed, security, stability, and features have always meshed well with how I used the web. My main browser until now has been Opera 12.17. Lately, however, I have noticed more and more websites, especially the news websites I depend heavily on for work, are not usable on Opera or render in an almost unreadable fashion.

So I tried upgrading to Opera 24. Imagine my surprise when the installation finished and I found it completely unusable. No toolbars, no panels, no main menu bar, no status bar, a crippled and amputated set of settings and, worst of all, I didn't gain anything for this complete lack of usability. I know that tablets and phones are the new hotness, and people such as myself still using desktop PC's are Neo-Luddite technological dinosaurs but, as a researcher and writer, a desktop PC remains my computer of choice. I am dismayed, therefore, to find that all trace of standard UI tools are gone.

I couldn't find how or where to restore these tools, either. Therefore, I can't use Opera for my email, I can't use my old bookmarks, I couldn't even choose continuing to use my custom-built homepage. On top of that, the only web pages I could manage to actually load were wikipedia. Even Opera's own help pages just spun uselessly until the "Can not find web page" message was displayed.

Either I'm doing something very wrong or (I suspect) Opera 24 has become a monstrosity that has left users such as myself behind.

I am posting this in the hope that some-one from Opera can tell me if the UI tools I've depended on are still available (hidden behind the stripped-down UI somewhere, perhaps) or if my initial impression is correct.

I am loathe to ditch Opera completely. After all, I have literally years of business and personal email in Opera Mail and I've genuinely enjoyed my previous Opera experience. That said, 12 is rapidly becoming obsoleted by evolving web standards and 24 appears to not fit my needs at all. I hope that I can be convinced I am wrong before I ditch a program I have used happily for years.