You are in good company. I went into Darktable enthusiastically and with willingness to learn its workflow.
What I found was crippling bugs and a piss-poor UI. I've even gone back to it after a few years to see if I'd soften my stance, but nope: It blows.
Part of my beef with it is discussed below; people are acknowledging that it sucks at organizing (and, I submit, browsing). But it purports to do it, so you waste time wrestling with its ineptitude.
The lack of easy browsing is an issue, but Darktable has never purported to provide an image browser / organizer. Quite the contrary, the devs have always been crystal clear that they hate the concept with a fiery passion.
The lack of good open-source image browsers has, oddly enough, become a major problem. Only recently did someone float a pretty good one for Mac (FlowVision). I don't know what options there are on other OSes at the moment.
What I found was crippling bugs and a piss-poor UI. I've even gone back to it after a few years to see if I'd soften my stance, but nope: It blows.
Part of my beef with it is discussed below; people are acknowledging that it sucks at organizing (and, I submit, browsing). But it purports to do it, so you waste time wrestling with its ineptitude.