I completely agree: it's awful to do even simple things in a shell script. A shell should just be used as a shell: an interface for a human to the system in a terminal. The syntax for if-else, switch, loops, conditions is insane. I will never remember how to write a condition expression: just a missing space can break everything.

I quit using bash for scripting a few months ago. Now I use haskell with shell-conduit: http://chrisdone.com/posts/shell-conduit and bash only for very very simple things where haskell would be just overkill.