The box with the single point is what I use. It's very easy to understand - one point, right there in the middle. I am used to manually focusing, checking up on AF to see if it focused on what I want, and the potential problems with focus-recompose. So I can get it to work without thinking about the different sensitivities or areas of outer points, finding the directional buttons with my thumb, or whatever.
SEL should allow you to choose the active focus point. The problem you had is that the arrow buttons also do other things so sometimes you get the focus point moving and sometimes flash settings. You can see on the rear screen when the arrow keys will move the point - there are arrows next to the AF point display. I'd have to read the manual to figure out more. People get it to work, but people also speak Chinese and I can't do that either.
Some cameras have an unbelievable numbers of points to cycle through.
Auto is easy too, just let the camera decide. It's like anything else auto. The red dots in the viewfinder will tell you what points it chose, so you know if it's chosen well. Green mode uses auto.
The camera is complicated but a lot of the complication is multiple ways to do the same task. I've been using a Pentax DSLR for 14 years and never used a lot of the stuff - like Sv mode. You don't need to be an expert on it all.