Ceric, you should just jump into ME2. Literally every complaint you just listed is completely fixed if not thrown out altogether. The Mako is gone, the game works much more like a real, actual shooter, no difficulty spikes, all the upgrading is super streamlined, etc. And the good stuff that ME1 does like the world building, all the characters and lore they all have and such is done even better in ME2. So yeah, if Mass Effect 1 is getting in the way of you playing Mass Effect 2, just skip it.