if you have that many issues with it, maybe you're not average 😄 i actually do consider myself average (mainly because i've seen some catalysts do miles better DPS than me in raids). i have a few months of playtime on cata. my highest bench before the big buff was 34k. my biggest bench before the most recent nerf was 40.7k. my current best bench is 37.4k. compared to the current best benches people are pulling off, those are pretty run-of-the-mill numbers. so yeah, average. the thing about ele's state is, you have to just get used to it not being able to provide as much as some other classes can. there's no point complaining about it when people have been doing the same thing basically since launch.
the way i see it, the things you actually have to keep track of are - sphere position if it's a mobile fight, EE stacks (which isn't even a problem in actual bosses since everyone spits out combo fields even if your own spheres aren't places well or you don't have energy for them), the fact that you can't gain energy while a sphere is out which is for 5 seconds, and maybe counting earth autos if you wanna tryhard that much. so in terms of things that actually matter if you actually learn the class at encounters that aren't the training golem, there's just sphere placement. sure, doing Hurricane of Pain or Lightning Storm and then the boss moves away sucks, but it's your fault for placing them when you should be ready to adapt to a moving or active bossfight.
if you actually learn the rotation, you will always have a finisher for every single attunement. following the rotation, you'll always have access to fire 5, air 5, water 4 or 5 and earth 5. finishers are literally the easiest part of playing catalyst, not sure why you consider it something to track.
EE stacks exist to motivate you to actually interact with the main mechanic of the class, using fields and finishers to make combos, so if they make EE give that much stats baseline then there's no point doing any combos more often than 15 seconds.
the ultimate thing, i can agree with. fire greatsword is a bland skill that you just place and use 5 on, then weaponswap out. only ele elite skills i think are interesting in gameplay are Weave Self and Rebound for obvious reasons.
pretty much, if you want to do more than the damage you're doing right now, you're gonna have to practice more and more. if you consider your efforts worthless because mech does the same as you, then you're always free to just play mech 😄i've seen countless times that since i've put in work to do better DPS than i ever did on any class before catalyst, i can actually outDPS people 99% of the time.
i really do hope that you can get better at the class if you really are interested in it, it's the class that made me fall in love with elementalist in the first place. i wholeheartedly believe it made me a better player for any class I play, and i hope it can have the same effect for you 🙂