Imho the main problem with Shade is that you need atleast 3 hands to use the very very keyboard oriented UI and that the "program/manual" uses non-standard names for standard actions and the same action may have a different name in the different explanations in the manual. Try a search in the manual for something as simple as "join" , when you want to connect 2 pieces of an object together, "connect" won't get you there either.
The whole "English" version of Shade reminds too much of the "japanenglish" user guides that appeared in the 60's with glorious highlights like "approach object A with the side of B and advance into adhering mode for complete success", which to the enlightened of us it really meant "glue A to B". :)