I've been using a 'magic trackpad' for years now, it is the only piece of Apple-branded equipment I ever bought (by getting it for cheap from the 'net), in Linux, and have not had any problems with acceleration curves or cursor control. It use it with 1/2/3 finger click gestures to substitute for the lack of those other buttons. I configure the thing through xinput since I'm not using a 'desktop environment' (Xmonad, dzen, dmenu, conky and trayer suffice). What are those terrible problems which made you pull out your mouse again?