Google Hangouts

Anyone else finding Google Hangouts to be unstable and frustrating?

1. Google decided my version refused to let me use it unless I upgraded, but the upgrade it offered was not new enough. So infinite loop. I switched to my phone. 
2. A friend could speak to me (hot mic), but she could not hear me (cold speakers). In retrospect she may have had the speakers on silent. She switched to her phone and we could hear each other. Well, once she found her headphones not on speaker.
3. Yesterday she had network connection errors that dropped her.
4. Today we both saw pauses in the video but audio continued.
5. With a remote coworker a couple weeks ago I had the same upgrade loop problem. Sure wish I remember how I solved it 23 minutes after I started.
6. Screensharing is complicated when I move back and forth from various applications, so it seems better to stick with share the whole desktop.
7. After about an hour on the last six or so sessions, the screenshare sticks and flips the image upside down. We have to end the call and start a new one to get it to correctly share.