Occupations and minor improvements break the game?
Not everyone feels the way you do.  Agricola is rated #7 on BoardGameGeek seven years after it was released.  Agricola is rated as "Medium-Heavy" on BGG with a 3.6 rating out of 5 which means that most people see it as among the more complex games they've played.

If you enjoy the family game, there's nothing wrong with just playing that.  Without knowing other games that you enjoy, it's hard for me to say whether Agricola is the right game for you, it's one of my favorites.

Play with the E deck only!

The base game comes with three decks, each with a different purpose. Make sure you are only using the E deck for your first few games to limit the complexity.

The decks are:


E - Everyone
I - Interactive
K - Complex


If you've been playing with just the E deck already, there are a couple ways to ease into the full game.


Play solo - this will let you play at your own pace and get some familiarity with the cards.  Despite the large number of cards, many of them are quite similar, or just deal with difference resources in the same way.
Draft - Each player draws their cards, picks one of each and hands their cards to the next player.  Repeat until all cards are taken.  This takes a long time to go thru the first couple times.  But it allows everyone to take cards they like.  In most cases, the last few cards you get can be ignored.  Not all 7 are winners :)
Draw 7, discard 3.  As I said above, not all 7 are winners.  Force everyone to make the choice up front and they'll be quicker during the game