Following the Trend.. Shakespeare: Friend or Foe?

I would love to use the simple line of "Wow! What's with the gibberish language? Shakespeare sucks," but I understand the bigger picture is enjoying the art of it and not quite the technicallity of the language. The thing that is hard for me to cope with when reading Shakespeare is I never know if I am expected to understand everything that is going on or just get a vague picture of the scene taking place. I give up on the footnotes because they make my head hurt with all that extra eye movements, so reading stanzas like the following:

"...Sure her offense
Must be of such unnatural degree
That monsters it, or your fore-vouched affection
Fall into taint; which to believe of her
Must be a faith that reason without miracle
Should never plant in me."
make absolutly no sense. I find myself often wondering if there is an argument taking place between the characters or if they are extremly happy with each other. I know for certain there are two chracters exchanging words, and that's about all I could tell you.
So, my point is: I understand the language sucks and we're supposed to love the literature through it all, but just how much am I expected to get from the book? I've always wondered if when kids claim they understood absolutly zilch of what they just read, and I'm in the same baot, if that's what's expected from us. Are we reading to get the simple plot line in the long run, or are we supposed to be soaking in every detail expressed to us through a language so foreign to us we might as well be trying to read out of a manuel da la Francais (French text book). In the end, I would like to say that I am unlike all those who simply see the language and from that point have a solid stand point that they hate the book, but I can't put myself above anyone. I'm just as confused. Our loving and dear William must be so proud of his accomplishment in leaving a whole generation in a cloud of utter confusion.

-purgalicious