I had the same experience with a relatively recent (2013?) Macbook, trying to help someone with one. I agree the tracking is quite nice, but clicking it requires far more force than I'm used to, meaning that trying to hold it down and drag is even worse - the friction is too high. The tactile response when it goes down and back up is also a bit weird; it's too dull and heavy-feeling when it goes down, there's almost no travel, and it comes back up with little sensation. It feels more like a "thud" than a "click", almost like the entire case of the machine is yielding slightly.

After working the trackpad a few more times and my fingers getting rather tired I tried to use keyboard shortcuts instead, but remembered that OS X doesn't have the Alt+ key combinations that Windows has, and tabbing through controls is disabled by default.

(My usual laptop is a Thinkpad X60, where I use the trackpoint and its buttons, and keyboard shortcuts whenever possible. On my desktop, I use a Microsoft Wheel Mouse Optical v1.1A, which I think is one of the best mouses ever made.)