Just curious. It seems like most people having problem are running mods, but I wanted to ask. If everybody not running mods is fine, and everybody who's getting screwed is running mods, that would be important to know.
This. It's sounding to me like the first thing you should do if you're having problems is to remove all (and I mean ALL) mods. Get it to work, then try re-applying them. But don't complain about Bethesda's crappy QA unless you are having serious problems and have never installed any mods whatsoever.
Sounds to me like the people you should be complaining about are the people who made those mods which break a new versions of Skyrim.
My policy is to never install anything on my computer unless I have a clear reason AND if I trust the source. I.e. the only mods I'm installing for Skyrim are those officially blessed by Bethesda. That policy has saved me a lot of headaches over the years.