Is LAX really that bad? I haven't been there in years, but this seems a bit egregious. What terrifies you? The long lines at the bathroom? The food court selection? The lack of charging ports?
How about having to check out your luggage, go through security, and check it back in, even when you are just transiting on the way to Europe.
Fly through a big Asian hub and you have none of that BS, modern clean efficient airports with working toilets that can actually flush and better food.
What really put us off was arriving after a long haul to a queue that filled the immigration hall, then proceeding to wait for two hours while the three desks (out of about 12) tried to process about three flights worth of people. That and the shoes thing, most other places don't have that.
It all may have changed, but until I hear otherwise (or that the TSA have decided to calm down) I'm happy with my choice.
Edit: As the other comment mentioned, this was also all just for a flight transfer.
Somewhere around the twin cities a guy from the TSA is wearing my boots. Try buying shoes at 06:30 in the morning... Last time I ever flew to/through the USA.
The experience of entering the US is pretty embarrassing compared to most modern countries. From what I've seen, it's significantly more ridiculous for non-citizens.
In most of Europe, one scans their passport, has their photo taken, and may need to tell a border guard why they're visiting. It takes less than five minutes, even for the former Soviet Union country I visited earlier this year.
If one is traveling to the US from Dublin, there's a sort of franchise of the USA wing of the airport that's quarantined off from everything else, where one has to go through another slow baggage inspection/body scan, even though the Irish Airport staff have already conducted identical inspection/scanning on every passenger there. Then there's a ~1-hour line (looked about twice as long for non-citizens) to wait to be grilled by customs and immigration. Total overhead for me was ~3 hours once I got to the airport there.
When flying in to Seatac, the CBP staff (the first representatives of the US that one talks to, in order to discuss anything being brought along) are all super-muscular giants dressed in full body armour, for maximum intimidation.
As A US citizen, it's embarrassing that our country treats visitors this way. I wouldn't visit if I were from outside the country either, which is almost certainly one of the goals - discourage foreigners from visiting, and discourage citizens from seeing what it's like anywhere else.
Fly through a big Asian hub and you have none of that BS, modern clean efficient airports with working toilets that can actually flush and better food.
Not a hard decision.