Labyrinth is a huge let down

I have played PoE off and on over the years and it's one of my favorite games (over 1k hours played). This is the first time I've ever posted something negative about PoE. I started playing again for the awakening. I was really enjoying the new content, I made a blade vortex/ blade fall shadow and my experience with the game was going great right up until labyrinth. I didn't spoil any of the content for myself and the only thing I knew really was traps n stuff.

-If it's supposed to be a puzzle area, why are there mobs and why can you use movespeed buffs/teleport skills to circumvent the traps?

-Why is it so long? I honestly was rushing and died because I was getting tired and wanted to go to bed. There are no checkpoints no way points why why? why? why? Everywhere else in the game is literally broken into sections of <15 minutes.

-It's too hard at least on normal, no idea of higher difficulties because I'm never going to do them after this experience. Technically the content is optional, but seriously everyone wants the ascendancy class points and are forced into this.

All in all I absolutely hated it. I don't like the traps, it was novel for like 5 minutes then it got annoying. Not going to overreact and claim I'm quitting or some such but I'm probably going to skip this league and hope this is patched/changed in 3 months or so.

Edit: I went in at lvl 33 and came out at 37 after 3/4 of one run + death. My self found shadow failed to kill the boss. It was especially discouraging after wasting all that time to hit a wall. I don't understand are you supposed to just ignore this and come back later when its trivial content?