IIRC Quick launch was very very easy under XP. With 7 you had to do the detective work you describe plus get rid of the text description for icons plus........ put the quick launch icons in the lower left corner. Just where I like to locate them. BUT All worth it! And with W/10, you must also nuke everything to the left, and IIRC this includes the hard to remove Store app. MS did not have the QL users in mind.
Then lastly (like I said) I put the entire task bar on auto-hide. 90% of Windows users never do anything like this and I will tell you why>>>>>>>
Since i frequently go to it, and i need to choose which open document from the pop up preview, or which instance of Firefox from the one icon, then it would take more time. The TB is quite thin as it i due to my resolution and using small icons. MS has fixed the opacity issue of W/8.1 though, and it overall looks better.
I prefer the flatness aka non-transparency of Win 8 to the transparency of win 7. This same GUI/simple signage was adopted across Microsoft websites. All for unifying users perceptions and brand loyalty.
BTW the win 7 transparent look uses system resources thus was cut out. It was instituted to compete w Apples slick GUI. So 8’s flat look allows for resources to be deployed to more worthy areas
This 8 GUI was extended to forced use of the tiles by laptop and desktop users which was a fatal mistake that MS could have been fully corrected in early updates but refused too