My mountain bike (BSA) has discs brakes but I am not crazy about them, first they rub, second they are noisy and third melted the rear one so bad that I had to buy a new set! Yes a lot of steep trails but still I would have expected some real benefits to switch over! They do brake better in the rain and not bothered by the mud but. . .
No luck huh? Well that's too bad. Of course if everyone had your experience, disc brakes would be showing up on CL and the bay regularly from the people that swapped them out for "non-melting" brakes. So your experience, notwithstanding, I think you missed most of the benefits of disc brakes because of .... I'm not sure why your bike was so badly in need of adjustment.