AP Style is the bane of my existence

I really hate AP style. For those of you who don't have the misfortune of knowing about it, it's the Associated Press Stylebook guidelines for journalists and most media publications (unless they have their own in-house guide, like NYT and The New Yorker, among others). Why do I need to use AP style for research documents? Good question. A question I have asked myself many times and not found an answer to. My biggest annoyance with AP is the "serial comma" rule. We had a Halloween event at work and I made headstones for the various style guides, and was particularly proud of this one here. Other things annoy me about AP, like their random use of numerals and spelled-out numbers. At least in APA it's a pretty easy distinction. I ended up having to look up articles containing the words "age four" and such on the AP site, because the entry was so vague in the guide. Also, the book is oddly organized. There's an alphabetical section of guidelines where you can look up spelling of certain words, and then there are completely separate sections on sports and business. Oh, and a punctuation guide at the end. They put spaces before and after dashes, which I don't like. And those damn serial commas! The rule for that is very vague, as well. Don't use a serial comma for a "simple series of three items" but use one for a more "complex" series. Complex meaning each item has several words? Or there are different grammatical structures in each item? I have to make my best judgements based on the oh-so-helpful paragraph stuck in the lower corner of the page. Page 328, to be exact.