Couldn't agree with you more @jonnyrevolution. We are missing some pretty key pieces to make this platform more user friendly. Notifications is huge, bring able to private message is another one, and better search-ability. Well... let's be honest, we could probably both keep adding to the list!
I just make it clear to people that we are still in beta testing when they have questions about some of those common features being missing. Once you have been on here for a while, you get used to it and it doesn't seem as bad. haha