Trenitalia - Italian Railways

Have just returned from a trip to Italy and whilst there travelled by train between Salerno and Naples and vice-versa. Having heard good reports about Trenitalia (Italian Railways) I was looking forward to something similar to the efficient service provided by SNCF^▸ in France. However, upon arrival at the station we found that as we were travelling outside of 'rush hour' we would have about a 1.5 hour wait for our train.
When we arrived back at the station, with around 10 minutes to spare before our train departed we found there was no information whatsoever in English with regards to ticketing procedure (tickets must be validated before travel but machines were not working anyway) and no information in English or Italian on the departure boards. There were also no staff at all on the station. We found this very suprising as this is the main station for the Amalfi Coast, linking with Naples and Rome which is reflected in the amount of English/German/French speaking tourists at the station - who were all equally lost.
When there were only a couple of minutes to go before our train we began to worry as no information had yet been displayed. Eventually the platform number was displayed as '2T' but there was no sign as to where this platform was. We finally found our platform due to an Italian shouting to the driver of the train, which was on a platform hidden around a corner with no signage whatsoever!
Upon boarding the train, we were shocked as it was covered in graffiti and had plastic 'classroom' type chairs - not exactly what we were expecting for a 1.5 hour journey! When the train called in at famous tourist sites, such as Pompeii no announcements were made at all which we also found very suprising.
After our day in Naples we headed back to the station, which is located next to Napoli Centrale and asked at the ticket office for information with regards to platform number and time of our train back to Salerno. We were told the train would arrive on platform 2 in 4 minutes - so we headed for platform 2, which incidentally had a sign saying 'Binario 2 - Salerno'
After we had waited about 20 minutes for our train an Italian who was standing on platform 1 shouted 'Salerno here' so we headed over the bridge in a panic, thinking we were going to miss the train. 30 minutes and 5 trains later - each of which the driver said 'the next one for Salerno' we were wondering about how were going to afford the taxi fare for the 70 km journey back to our resort - then finally the Salerno train came - incidentally, this man was helping out French, German and English tourists and also happened to be the only Italian travelling on the train - I wonder why?!
When we left Napoli Centrale, we spent about 10 minutes speeding up and slowing down before finally getting going to Salerno. Having arrived at the station in Naples at 6pm we arrived back in Salerno at around 8:30!
Although the trip costs ^6,60 return I would still not advise this as the best way to travel in Italy and would say that trains in Britain are far superior to our limited experience. I understand that Trenitalia may not all be this bad, we did see some really flashy 'Eurostar Italia' trains outside Napoli Centrale - maybe we are just treated to the mainly clean, modern and efficient service we experience on South West Trains WoEML^▸ .