Mizlee, I too hated quilting my first quilt. JUst keeping the weight of my quilt so that I could sew was hard. About 8 quilts later, I figured out that if I placed my ironing board perpendicular to my sewing machine, on the left, the ironing board could support the weight of my quilt, and I could quilt easily. Twenty quilts later, I can say that I find machine quilting very satisfying.
However, all I do is SID or some sort of diagonal, from corner to corner of each block. I have not tried anything else, and I am quite happy. Like Ministutz, I am one who doesn't prefer all of the quilting. I just like less, so I make sure the batting I use requires less.
I also have a foot that is just for stitch in the ditch. It makes hitting that ditch soooo easy. I do have a built in walking foot on my machine, so that may make a difference also.
Hope the ironing board hint is helpful?