May I ask how much time do you spend in ERA interface on daily basis?
I spent a lot of time during the transfer of the PCs on the network. I suggest you try to learn what is new in this version and adapt, instead of complaining when you do not get another Windows console. I knew I did. First, I had problems with agent deployment - solved with GPO deploy. Second, I always used preconfigured packages - now I used polices to set up every computer. Policies and tasks are really strong concept.
My thinking is that if I pay for something I have right to complain. You know, like when you pay to car mechanic for repair your car, and you notice when you drive away something is not right on car. You come back to him and complaint that he didn't fix your problem.
I used to spent around 30% time of my day in ERA console for my own reasons and I don't count production deployment and test lab. I have deployed this "solution" in test lab several times on Windows and Linux platform, so I don't need lessons on "try to learn". If you tried to deploy Linux platform (and I don't talk about ERA virtual appliance) you would know how horrible and incomplete documentation is. Now I have configured syslog which informs me on threats in network, instantly and I spend less time in ERA console. But when I do, when I connect to console I know that I will get consistent information in matter of seconds. I don't have to wait for part of web page to fetch data from http server, to refresh browser page. I don't have to worry about log off (which by default can't be changed on default account, and solution to create second account just to be able to change timeout if not funny is very sad). Regarding policies and tasks, I don't know if you used previous version of ERA, but this concepts exist there. And you know that you can't export v5 policies to v6? Right? I could agree on "adapt"(accept would sound better) part of your comment, as situation stands this is the only solution to problems, people using ESET v6 product have.
One of the remaining problems is the old information in web interface, I guess that will be solved in next major release. Linux deployment is hard without documentation, but can be done, as it is based on Tomcat, Apache and MySQL (PostgreSQL support needed). I cant say that I know what you need on your network, but if you need instant threat information,and there are a lot of attacks, staring at the console all the time looks like a bad option.