Safari used to present the bookmarks and disappear after a selection was made. Now, I have to manually close the bookmarks every time. The favorites bar disappears requiring me to make it visable again. Lastly, I can't set a home page.
But I have run in to the bookmarks issue - though not enough to frustrate me any more than other browsers.
And I've never had an issue with the favorites bar - odd. I wonder if there is a key combination you are hitting that makes it disappear?