Apple iOS 7 upgrade on iPad 3, real world

OK, so the upgrade to iOS 7 on an iPad 3 went well.  Or so I thought...  the actual installation of the OS
upgrade went without a hitch, smooth sailing.  But after, during use of the new OS on the iPad is when things started going downhill. First off, the UI changes are actually more substantial that I was expecting.  A number of changes are not intuitive and are quite different from the prior version.  Silly things like how to get to search (which I use a LOT), instead of side left swiping and need to pull down from the top. OK fine.  How to multi-task is also a bit different and seems to actually take a bit more time to do things.

But these are small potatoes... it's the crashing that is the biggest issue.  It crashes when I change the background, it crashes when I do various usual things.  Hhhmmm, it would be good to go back to the prior iOS.  Is it possible?