Google calendar nuisances

I am very happy with Google Calendar's syncing with my Outlook. I don't have Microsoft Exchange at work so I can only share my calendar through Google. That is all right, after all that's the whole point of having your calendar online. Or, is it? Not quite! Whenever you go to Google Calendar's first page, and you're not logged in, you have two options: log in or sign up. Yes, no search for somebody else's public calendar. You have to go through the usual Google search route for that. You can send your friends an html link (mine is here) or an ical entry of your calendar, but that's certainly not practical. What's more, each calendar has its own unique link (fine) but what happens if someone wants to see your merged public agenda? To top it all, a private event with "Show me as busy" in a public calendar still shows up when shared, complete with the event's time info and a telling, for-those-in-the-know (or for-those-in-the-law at other times, depending on the event), "busy" title. That's not very private to me.