this is all so true, ive been at it for ten months now and its all about practice and practice and more practice.
my improvements have been slow and sometimes ive wandered if i will ever get anywhere <img src="images/smiley_icons/icon_eek.gif" border=0 alt="Shocked"> .
just keep practicing and it will come
try a,d,e then mabey g,c,d or pick a song you like and find the chords for it and play them till your changing those chords resonably well and that will give you the confidence to keep going.
and always warm up with some simple fingerings up and down the fret board, boring as hell but it builds stregnth and gets the fingers moving better.
try learning all the notes on the fretboard and run through them one string at a time saying the notes as you go, handy stuff to know and as you progress you will be glad you learned this <img src="images/smiley_icons/icon_razz.gif" border=0 alt="Razz">
hope this helps