does anyone else find the steam workshop a chore to search?

I honestly cant be bothered looking thru it all.

to me it seems rather unrefined, anyone else find this also or do people find it a useful and a user friendly place to get mods?

I dont know about unrefined, or rather exactly what context your using that in, in this case. I myself check the offerings on SW twice a day. First i simply change the order their all displayed in to most recent (as opposed to most popular as that list is slow to change) to see whats new and maybe interesting. Then if im looking for something particular (say a real custom race) Ill click on the race filter and see if there is anything I missed noticing before.

The main thing that bothers me about the SW is that the mod uploaders appear to be the ones choosing what catagories their mods go in, and say in my previous example clicking the race filter will still pull up ALOT of female NPC face replacers ect. And those definetly belong somewhere else. I get tired of sorting through countless Lydia looks like _________ mods, when what i really want is a new / interesting PC /NPC mod (tabaxi import anyone? lol)

FInally there are other ways to get your mods, and my favorite has been and always will be Nexus. Still ill check on PES and a couple of modders personal websites now and then for mods that for one reason or another dont get submitted there. Those mod sites are not going anywhere, if for no other reason than the fact SW has some restrictions on what kind of "material" can be shared there.

So if the SW doesnt float your boat, you still have plenty of mod date base options out there = )