Understanding an IDE

I may be doomed to an early obsolescence. My years in this field could be numbered before I really get started. I can't figure out integrated development environments. I get curious every once in a while and try to fire up a Java IDE (Eclipse or NetBeans), and I just get lost and distracted. I just give up after deciding I don't want to spend any time re-architecting my entire build environment -- setting classpaths, setting up projects, etc. I have to work so hard just to get it to stop flagging everything as unknown and to maybe start completing some syntax.

I did get slightly further with NetBeans this time. I quickly mounted my source filesystem and a pile of jars, and it actually seemed to be working. I might actually be able to start using that one, but with the RefactorIT module being crippleware, I'm not sure what use I'll have for NetBeans at all. RefactorIT also seemed to like to block up the whole IDE anytime I tried to use it.

I looked at Eclipse for the very first time and was immediately stuck creating a project and importing (aka duplicating) all my code into the project. PowerJ insisted on doing that too. It wouldn't just work on my local VSS directory I already had. Maybe I'll get further in 2 months when I care to look again.