[RaycatRakittra]

Sounds like you got an amalgam of bad first impressions. Sorry to hear that!

So, something that helped me get pass that inertia was learning where init.el resided and how it is loaded. After I read about that, installing a package manager that's not constrained to the minibuffer was a 3-4 line endeavour (use-package). Save, reload. After that, you might get a notification of Emacs warning you about trusting an unknown source. (I always accept here.) After that, it was a matter of using M-x use-package and installing packages that I remembered from Spacemacs: which-key, restart-emacs, swiper/counsel/ivy, and hydra were enough to get me up and running.

Regarding the overly complicated commands, I agree that they're a bit lengthy but you are able to change the ergonomics of your keybindings at will. My config is heavily inspired by evil-leader and I put a lot of functionality behind "C-;". So, "C-; f p f" will open a search dialog for all of the files in the current VCS repo. This might be lengthy for some but it feels right to me. I like that about Emacs.

Sorry for the rambling! If you ever decide to try it out again, feel free to message me and I'll help where I can.