David, you seem to be having many more issues than most. I do find that quark is much more stable on intel based (newer, faster) macs.
Regarding your points:
1. Works fine for me, try trashing preferences.
2. Yeah, keyboard shortcut was nice. But using floating pallet does work fairly well.
3. Works fine for me, try trashing preferences.
4. Yes, telling the picture to have none for a background is one extra step. But once you have done one, duplicate that box for all remaining 1 but tifs, and the preference will "hold" when importing each subsequent image. Not sure how quark handles legacy files, though.
5. Option click (mac) the desktop hides program fine. But there are issues when quark is "doing things like opening files, etc", and then attempting to hide. But, truth be told, It is NOT just quark that behaves this way.
6. Works fine for me, try trashing preferences.
7. Works fine for me, try trashing preferences.
8. Typesetters (here in the US of A) use picas for all layout purposes. Not sure why you would mix inches in?
Quark 7.5 is the MOST STABLE version since 3.x. Works fine for me, try trashing preferences.
Quark is doing a fine job. 7.5 works very well. EPS's print faster than ever before. Placed PDFs print faster than ever before.
Works fine for me, try trashing preferences.
Bloated, maybe. I have always wished quark only gave us a layout program. But, some of the new features in 8.x could be very valuable time-savers if you do not have web authoring tools. ONLY application in the business that does what it does regarding web/flash.
Regarding some of your "off color" language: Works fine for me, try trashing preferences.