It sounds like a huge pain. I haven't done much outside of Hive lately, but I hope those pool positions work out for you in the long run. I guess it might take time for those liquidity fees to pay off the transaction fees, but at least you know what you need to do in the future.
Since I use very small amounts of money for the moment, it's rather an exploration than real investment. I try to start small so that such things don't hurt too much :-)