iTunes 9 Horrors

Despite the fact that Steve Jobs was healthy enough again to get back on stage yesterday's apple media event was not very satisfying. First of all I'm not the perfect audience for new differenct colored ipods anyways. Neither do I embrace the fact that I can now buy ring tones for even more money than the songs they are based on.
Still I was looking forward to the the event because of the announcement of iTunes 9.
There were three major areas for great improvements over iTunes 8.

• Speed/Cocoa
  
  Responsiveness is not one of iTunes major strengths. After I saw the rewritten finder in Snow Leopard, I was very much hoping Apple would go for a similar rewrite for iTunes using the Cocoa API for gaining such an incredible speed improvement over its predecessor like they did with finder.
  
  
• iTunes Store/AppStore
  
  With now about 70.000 apps in the AppStore of which over 20.000 are games an improvement in visibilty and usability would be a great benefit for users and iphone developers alike.
  
  
• Watched Folders
  
  Since I started using iTunes I was hoping for iTunes being one day able to watch a local drive/folderlist or a network for changes and add songs to the library if I just copy some mp3s to those locations instead of always having to add new songs through iTunes which becomes extremely annoying if I have several computers using that same network drive as a music storage.

I am quite aware of the fact that the last point on my list "Watched Folders" is never likely to happen because apple wants the users having to use iTunes for music management.

So let's see what iTunes 9 can help me with my other problems.
After installation I see the new design. All very bright and shiny, even the background of the album view is now a horrible bright color. Looks like they hired a designer from Microsoft who do a very streamlined design but with a little bit too much everywhere so the look gives you the creeps either instantly or after two weeks the latest. But that's just my personal taste or distaste. So what's up with my other wishes:

• Speed/Cocoa
  Umm... nope... It is still as slow as its predecessor and it's no Cocoa.
  
  
• AppStore
  After I am totally blinded by enourmous wallpapers of the iTunes Store I finally find my way into the new Appstore. Let's look for games. Umm... Staff picks here, staff picks there... Let's just assume I don't care that much what the staff is picking for me. Ahh... there in the upper menu under a small arrow the AppStore the categories are hidden... Games, there it is. Let's go...
  No, nothing goes. All they changed is actually flatten the hierarchy. The sub categories of games are nowhere to be seen no more. I can see the top 20 paid games, the top 20 free games and then, (right now) 657 pages of games. What the fuck??? They managed to even worsen the already bad experience. If I am looking for racing games or adventure games or puzzle games or whatever I now have to go through ALL AppStore games (right now about 20.000) to find what I might be interested in...
  

This is what I would call a total failure. Whoever was responsible for the development of iTunes 9 did a horrible job. Sure, there are very few improvements. I can now manage the apps on my phone and buy ringtones for enourmous amounts of money.
But for the moment I am an angry customer. Seems I start the wait for iTunes X in September 2010 probably...