KDE 4.74 "upgarde" frustration, especially with Menu Crash

[TheGreatSudoku]

I "upgraded" my LMDE Sid to KDE 4.74 today. What a tragic mistake that was! My plasma panel lost the task manager, came up with an "unknown application" icon in the quick launch area. Trying to move the widgets to where I wanted them on the plasma bar was an exercise is frustration! I finally got it, but not before inadvertently creating 2 digital clock icons on the desktop, a systray on the desktop, and an activities on the desktop. I deleted them all but it is SO annoying to have to DRAG a widget to the plasma panel instead of simply double clicking the widget to add it to the panel. I managed to get my panel back to normal, but here's the kicker (no pun intended).

In 4.7.4 the "Launcher Application Menu" icon disappeared. No big deal I though, I'll just add it back. So I did. And when I click on it BOOM, KDE crashes hard, my screen flickers and I get the bug report window popping up. Is there is fix for this? At this point it I have to use an ugly retro drop down menu as opposed to a sleek-looking and searchable menu there's no point in using KDE at all. May as well go back to XFCE and it's lack of ploish.

Frustrated as hell right now. Anyone else having this problem? Anyone know how to fix it?

What I think is pertinent from me ~/.xsession-errors log regarding plasma
http://pastebin.com/7aa9TsXN

[TheGreatSudoku]

turns out it was some conflict with compiz, disabling it fixed the menu issue. Guess it's a sign of how depreciated compiz is becoming Sad as KDE's compositor feels like a stripped down version of compiz.