Kardworx is frustrated. A lot of folks trying to get WordPress and/or their blog running/upgraded are probably just as frustrated. I am frustrated. Those who try to help people like Kardworx and me are also frustrated. But why!?
I think it's due to several things:
1. Not only are the frustrated folks brand new to WP, a lot of them are also new to blogs in general. They do have the codex and others on this forum to help them, but the codex, while a good start and while containing a lot of info, appears to be often outdated by the flow of new versions of WP, of mySQL, and of phpMyAdmin.
2. A lot of information exists to help new bloggers. Truth be told, so much information exists that new bloggers can easily be overwhelmed. I am not aware of any books on WordPress that can be bought and studied, and if any did exist, they would be outdated by the time they came off the presses.
3. Many hosts offer free installation and setup of WP and other applets but no support for WP and the other applets. I can't blame them. But host customer support should be well-versed on how those applets integrate with their other software, and should be able to offer more than "did you try reinstalling WP?" or "is your wp-config correctly set up?"
I became so frustrated with Yahoo that I signed up with Bluehost. BH customer support is, IMO, much better than that from Yahoo, but still, not every customer support tech there can be a software systems integration engineer.
4. Often those who offer their time, experience, and knowledge on forums such as this one become so tired of seeing the same old questions over and over and over again that their replies are sometimes a bit short. OTOH, sometimes responders also become so frustrated that the frustration can be read between the lines of their replies. Sometimes those who ask beginner's-type questions are outright chastised for starting such posts.
Sorta like going to a store and upon asking a clerk if he has Brand-X somewhere, and being told to "go look for it yourself".
5. I realize that many forums have search capabilities, but when newbies start threads, they often do not know the correct terminology to use to describe their problems. The terms "page" and "Page" confusion comes to mind. If somebody doesn't know the right search term, it is a crapshoot whether he will find a helpful post.
6. Hosts make it easy for people to believe that starting and maintaining a blog is a matter of 1-2-3. "Just sign up, load our free site-manager/ftp-application/c-panel/blog-manager etc. and begin enjoying your blog," they claim. Right. Just like that. Like the salesmen tell prospective customers. "With these tools and this book of plans and how-to, you too can build a great house/airplane/boat/whatever!" So the poor boob buys a truckload of professional tools, dumps them on the garage floor, looks at the plans, reads the how-to, and then wonders where the heck to start. ;)
Anyway, I can see valid reasons for the frustration on both sides. Guess it's just something we need to work on. I too am a beginner with blogs and WordPress and have spent days trying to get my blog into a stable state upon which I can build, upgrade as new stuff becomes available, etc.
It's like waterskiing. Once you're up, its great! Never before during the last 25 years of learning and using PC and Mac software for technical writing, illustration, layout, and commercial publishing have I shed so many tears as I have trying to come up to speed with my blog.
It's nobody's fault. Not the software developer's, the host customer support people's, not Joe Blogstarter, and not Joe Expert. It's just the way it is. A never-ending roller-coaster ride. And it will continue to be that way until computer and software evolution ceases.