You bring up many different aspect of Buddhist thought and practice. I'll try to address a few. The summary of what I have to say is, to put it bluntly, I don't think you understand Buddhism very well, Mike. I'm not saying that as criticism, I just think that if you're gonna decide what Buddhism is and isn't you should understand it better. If you're really interested in learning more, you should find a good balanced source (or several), read what they have to see and contemplate what it means. I think you'll find there's more there than what you've seen so far.
Mike Kich:
I don't believe desire is something inherently to detach from, unless that happens by itself as part of some other natural process in yourself.
Try sitting with the feeling of wanting something, like maybe a new electronic gadget that just came out (if you're into that) or a girl you're interested in or whatever. How does it feel? How does it feel in your mind? How does it feel in your body? Do you think it leads to to happiness or does it lead to more suffering?
Mike Kich:
I've heard someone say in a Buddhist Geeks podcast once, that for many Buddhists their vision of who they are spiritually gets segmented off from the rest of their lives, and that the way they practice has too many "shoulds" associated with it, way too much guilt and obligation. That I agree with, having done it plenty to little effect. In order to be really representative of my life, a method has to be non-prejudicial. This is why Zen and basic Vipassana are the closest thing to really suitable I've found, though I suppose Zen has its own things you can critique.
I think the person that was speaking in that podcast was giving that as an example of misunderstanding or misapplying buddhist practice. This practice is not about "shoulds," neither is it about guilt or obligation. All of these things come from buying into the ego's stories. This is exactly what we're trying to find freedom from! The attitude that one uses while doing vipassana practice or when sitting zen doesn't have to be limited to the cushion. You can bring that attitude to every part of your life and when you do, there is no more "should" there is just what is and what comes as a result of that.
Mike Kich:
I will say I agree with you about the heart having to be in accordance with the head. There's a pretty widespread sense throughout Buddhism that the "heart" essentially equates to lies and the Self leading you off the correct path to happiness. That doesn't make any sense to me, simply because it's 'there' already, and any doctrine or method that tells you to turn off parts of your experience or alter it somehow seems to contradict a true coming to terms with your reality.
I'm not sure where you got the idea about the heart equated to lies. It is completely the opposite of how I understand Buddhist thought and from my own experience of practice as well. There is a word in Pali (the language of the Suttas) - Citta - meaning heart-mind and when the suttas talk about the mind they mostly use this term, citta. This, in my opinion, points to the importance they place on the connection between heart and mind. In fact, at the time of the Buddha (and I think still today to some degree), the seat of the mind was in the heart. To see the importance of Heart in the practice you need only look at the importance of teaching about morality, generosity, no-harm, joy and, of course, the four divine abodes (said to be where the enlightened mind dwells): Love, Compassion, Joy and Equanimity.
Mike Kich:
AF for example is not my way of doing things, though I do think it just works for some people; if it for all intents and purposes works in their experience, then that's enough.
As far as I know, AF people say there is no connection between AF and buddhism. It's a different practice leading to something different. So I'm gonna leave that out.
Mike Kich:
That subjectivity of things is also what makes me doubt the more traditional criteria for enlightenment. For example, if I'm a stream-enterer I'm supposed to have let go of what is it, the first 4 fetters? I'm a bad Buddhist

But what if someone has a different experience? What if they don't experience 'fruition' per se, but in their own way they acrue a lot of wisdom about life and awaken without an 'event' of some kind? I've met people now and then who seem pretty content and wise in a common sense kind of way without any religious path. Does that make them somehow less enlightened? Most people on this site would say yes, that until they've met this specific set of criteria they are still stuck in some territory or another, but I do not agree.
There's a wise zen saying: "There are no enlightened people, only enlightened actions." Enlightened people can sometime be total assholes and the random person in the street can sometimes be a source of sublime wisdom. When it comes down to it, enlightenment is not an end in and of itself. Enlightenment is a beginning. It allows you to see the world more clearly and to act out wholesome intentions. It doesn't make you an infallible saint, it doesn't make you invulnerable, it doesn't make you anything. What I think it does is it lets you see your own truth very clearly and lets you act out of that truth. It removes the obstacles that blind you and that bind you and lets you just be. It is still up to you to act out of that truth or not.
Mike Kich:
Daniel mentions in MCTB that Buddhist practice is not a cure for other aspects of life, like morality, and that becomes more and more glaringly apparent to me. Society is not what I would like it to be and does not allow me to live healthily, what can meditation do about that? Not very much. At the end of the day I still can't live the way I want to, because certain social realities are just so. These are however also aspects of my experience, even if they are external to me and mostly out of my control. So if Buddhism does not concern itself with that, then what does hold an answer?
First of all, Daniel also says that morality is an important part of Buddhism. The first and the last teaching, in fact. So while Buddhist practice won't make you a saint (will anything??) it does have a lot of good advice and good practices on how to do better in the world. Meditation is just one part of the practice. An important part, for sure, but not the whole thing. Practicing generosity, for example, is a very important part of the training in morality. Three steps in the Eightfold path are about morality and two or three more can be related to it as well. Only 2 or 3 are specifically about meditation. If you want to see what Buddhism is about, I suggest checking out those parts as well.
The second part of what you say is more complicated. How is it that you want to live your life? What kind of society do you envision living in?