Lightroom RAW versus jpg out of the camera

Shot RAW for the first time. Always used Picasa before to PP shots a little.

Downloaded Lightroom 4 trial software. The RAW file can be imported to Picasa but looks bad and almost unworkable. Imported the RAW in lightroom and played around with it a bit. Got discouraged by the complicated interface of lightroom. Finally saved the RAW from lightroom to jpg as standard processed by lightroom.
Here are the pictures. Still like the jpg straight from the camera best.
Should I not bother with RAW?