downloading games from chess.com to aquarium, chessbase, [and in pgn]

i want to study chess openings and games and / but most of the tools i find:

 a. are more or less clumsy and / or buggy and / or incompatible - [i presume this state of affairs profits someone[s]. [some stuff, like babbas chess and chess position trainer do have the excellence produced only by true amatuers];

b. seem to result in spending / wasting more time trying to get the tools to perform than improving the play / study of chess by the user;

c. get overhauled ['upgragded' and made more expensive for changing a product you have painfully learned to make work for you with many hours' investment;

any solutions or approaches?

I download pgn files from chess.com to ChessBase all the time. Not completely seamless but easy enough. Once in ChessBase, it's no trouble to edit/analyze/make database files of these games.

Right On ! ! I about most commercial stuff that is supposed to help 'improving chess players' get better.

I barely spend any time with real chess while i'm in front of my computer  screen. Books, wood, magazines and newspapers and various neat physical things like travel-electronic chess of various sorts and clever things made of leather and magnets [have you found 'sticky-chess from USCF store ? . . . and ChessPad 2 is another lover's computer program that is helpful like CPT and Babbas] all of these are either free or cheaper and more useful than the 'classier' stuff ['tho i must add, there is a free version of Chessbase adequate for many purposes and Bookup / COW makes so pretty accessible and useful free stuff available. 

Steve Lopez, the Chessbase guru put out a DVD a few years ago that gives some help guiding sluggs like me through computer programs [unfortunately, he's hardly writing now and his older stuff may give useful clues but much of it is out of date -- and Chessbase - or some dedicated true, devoted amateur editor has never organizes his stuff to make it easily accessible].

ChessOK Cafe by Dadi Jonsson has a column in ChessCafe that serves the Rybka /Chess Assistant / Aquarium 2010 family as Steve Lopez' stuff mostly serves Chessbase products. But I find Convekta stuff is raw - you need to be an almost- programmer to tweak it into full usefulness and it is put on the market somewhat 'buggy'. [{AND my 'Russ-lish' is not very good - but, of course, my real Russian doesn't exist - I can't even read the alphabet.}] ! Having said all that, it is cheaper and more instructive than Chessbase stuff. I'd say that it is geared to the serious adult learner more than Chessbase which caters to the professional [and wannabe pro with deep pockets].