The worst experience we ever had was putting up the tent - a reasonably new tent so we weren't even sure how to put it up properly - in a sudden rainstorm/hurricane affair. Honestly, it came from nowhere. When we started it looked a bit overcast, ten minutes later we're still puzzling over which pole goes where and the rain starts lashing down and the wind is blowing trees sidewards. She shut the DC in the car and battled on through, helped by our heroic Dutch camp neighbours.
We'd just finished when the fairly old tent of our neighbours on the other side totally ripped apart and started flying away, exposing all their stuff underneath. So all four of us rushed over there and started protecting at least the clothes and non-waterproofs. But obviously we didn't have a mobile number (neither did the campsite) and the people were away on a day trip - didn't get back till later that night, just stuffed everything in the car and drove off quickly. Ever since then, whenever we've had a rainy day, I've thought, at least our tent hasn't blown away.
But to your question, how to make camping more bearable:
Damn good mats, we have either proper camping beds or 10cm thick.
An electric hook-up with small electric stove and proper lamp (IKEA does good cheap plastic ones)
Some sort of tarp or gazebo at the front entrance so people can come out without getting soaked instantly. All the shoes etc can stay outside, and you can keep the table and chairs set up there without fear they'll get soaked.
We used to have an electric fridge but found it horribly loud at night and not that efficient actually. We've since gone over to a flexible cool bag always stuffed with two coolpacks, which we freeze in the camp freezer. They need to be changed twice a day to keep everything properly cold, but if you're over at the shower block anyway it's not much extra hassle.
We use a campsite in the Alps, in southern Austria, that's won awards for its quality. Great shower block which is kept pretty clean, unlimited hot water and free attached hairdryers.
"Despite huge tent, we're a bit rubbish at camping." Yeah, I'm always rather envious of the fmiles that seem to have everything sorted. We've taken years to come to the conclusions above, and two years ago actually managed to turn up at the campsite after two days driving to find that we'd forgotten the inner sleeping pods for the big tent. When you're sleeping at 1300m that make it horribly cold at night!