creber, thanks for the welcome first of all
OK, most of your points may well be valid and unfortunately some are unique to CDG but my simple point was that it really is not the worse (or even 5th worse) airport in the world. But I see now that this has been addressed by LFV's post
As for the specific issues, yes, I agree on the check-in desks chaos situation. However, 3 things:
1) if you're a frequent user it really should not confuse you as much as you'd have got the hang of it after a while;
2) why not check in online? It's available for most destinations these days, certainly on AF etc;
3) there are worse offenders: try GRU or JNB at peak times (e.g. every evening - you can hardly walk through the terminal) or try CAI etc.
Re gates, boarding, distances, etc, well, whilst this is not the ideal situation, again, CDG is not much worse (or, alas, better) than many other major airports in Europe (think LHR, MXP, even FRA) and around the world.