I certainly agree -- I've had a lot of frustration with it myself. But, now that I've got the hang of it for what I do, I'm very impressed with it because it can do so much totally offline, thus saving battery.

I had the same problem. I finally got this to work, I believe, by setting the "wake-up interval" to zero seconds (under Background Settings).

For the maps I use the offline versions that I was able to download for whatever states I visit from within the app. I don't recall which settings I've changed, but wherever possible I tell it to use offline data. I was able to download an English-speaking voice from within the app.

That said, I rarely use the turn-by-turn navigation of OSMAND: for what I do with it, I find it is easier and more reliable to just superimpose GPX tracks that I export from RideWithGPS.com. I then just look at the phone occasionally to see what turns I need to make. Don't get me wrong: I realize that your needs / wants may be different.

For turn-by-turn directions, the key thing is to first establish a destination, and then select "Follow" from the Directions prompt.