Example time: starting a new game as Austria, #3 in the World Rankings of Awesomeness. Here's what you can do, going across the information bar (which is excellent, by the way).
PRODUCTION: nope, all of the factories are started automatically by capitalists.
BUDGET: maxed out all my sliders and lowered taxes so all groups could afford luxury goods, earning 300 pounds per day. Nothing to change here afterwards.
TECHNOLOGY: pick a tech, come back 4 years later.
POLITICS: nope, no reforms to do. Political party seems OK to me.
POPULATION: nope, all automated. Can place 2 National Foci for colonies or to nudge people towards a POP group.
TRADE: goodness, let's let the AI handle this mess.
DIPLOMACY: here's something. Spend the plentiful diplo points to change relations from negative to friendly in 12 months. Add countries to your sphere of influence, if you are a Great Power.
MILITARY: here's something else. Queue up some troops, wait for war.
So there you go. After the first ~5 minutes of setting things up, what to do? Diplomacy and wait for events or rebels or war. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
1. Austria isn't 3rd overall, Russia is.
http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/1811/1836diplomacysetup.png
Production: That depends on the party that's in power; some parties allow you to build factories yourself. I'd think that someone reviewing the game would have played enough to realize that.
Budget: Have you passed any reforms yet? I highly doubt it's that easy. Again, makes me wonder how much you've actually played the game.
Technology: Sure, we can go with that one. Sounds reasonable enough.
Politics: Have you played to the start of the liberal revolution? The rise of socialism? Fascism? I would think those would make the politics side a little more interesting than what you've described.
Population: The number of National focuses you have changes over time, with your population. It's not always a static number. Also, focuses can also promote industry when you can't build it yourself, which is, once again,
something you can do in the game.
Trade: Sure, Indeed it is complicated. But you can't complain about a game not having enough to do when you're scared of it's features.
Diplomacy: Sure, despite the fact that you left out the fact that other GPs can do the same things and sometimes will work to hurt your own investments. Sounds like a time-spending feature to me.
Military: What about the fact that soldiers are tied to specific POPs, and can rebel, making a multicultural nation like Austria hard at times to manage?
I haven't played the game yet, but it seems to me like I answered all your complaints. I just personally can't believe that so many features are actually so boring. Did you ever play the colonial game? Did you ever fight a Great War? I have a feeling you haven't played this game as much as you say you have.
