Yes, that is my experience too. But I don't care; google drive is for google docs, and google docs aren't useful at all on my desktop. I'm not sure why I even run the gdrive desktop app.
Yeah, the sync features are just there are a bare minimum checklist requirement. Drive was delayed for over five years for one single reason: because the VP in charge believed that storing files on a local machine was antithetical to Google's entire vision of how computing should work.
(Source: In the Plex,by Steven Levy, interviews)