You dont really need to do the split on the top side. Just outline the circumference of the top side and of the bottom side with seams, and unwrap that. I havent looked too much into the new Peel tools so I dont know if this was done by AutoPeel, but it looks like that's what happened here. Some manual placement may be…
Blender doesn't force anything on the user any more than Maya or Max do, which is to say that it does. =] I don't really have a problem with the UI. Workflow wise I think it offers quite a few improvements even over commercial software I've used. Graphically it looks better than max, maya or xsi. It's closer to modo or c4d…
"I struggled a lot trying to get a rocky silhouette and understand how to use the common blender brushes for this kind of sculpt." Visual Language may help, in creating a more rock-like textured silhouette and as for your finesse with Blender's default sculpt brushes, then imo you've actually nothing to worry about really,…