No, you're not the only one. I'd been forewarned of the awfulness of pulse, but didn't even notice its installation until later, when I discovered all the useful things I could do with it: play music over the office Apple airplay thingy; use two sets of headphones simultaneously; send audio to another computer in the house. Without any typing, searching, or rebooting,

I remember OSS and Alsa, and I don't miss either. As far as I can see, it makes Linux audio work like any other computer in this millennium.