I hope you'll reconsider and give Zen Cart another chance. It isn't really as complicated as it seems. It sounds like you might be on the verge of a breakthrough (seriously!). I find I'm always

just before I get the hang of something. If you try the list I posted earlier, I'm sure you'll start to see how it works and how to get where you want to be.
There are lots of free templates in the downloads section which are attractive and can help you figure out your own design.
I suggest you download and unzip the latest version of Zen Cart on your local drive (your computer). You don't need to be able to run Zen Cart locally (that's far more complicated), but having it available locally will give you an idea of the structure.