Could someone please explain Quidditch to me?

I was reading the paper about a week ago and some guy was writing in to complain about a poor game of football or something somewhere which really annoyed him. He was really annoyed because one team had won, they had scored only one try but they had got a conversion, I think some other points from things that were like whatevers, field goals or special kicks or whatever the terminology in this particular game was. I'm afraid I don't know too much about the game to explain.

The thing is, the other team had got more tries and LOST. I don't think the margin was great but they lost.

And it really annoyed the man and he thought it was a stupid game and really, it took all the fun out it and just was boring and not worth watching.

This brings me to the well-known Rowling-invented, Harry Potter game of Quidditch which I'm afraid I just don't understand and maybe someone can explain it to me.

Apparently it's a riveting game and everyone loves it, everyone magical that is, so there must be something to it, or could wizards and witches just have terrible taste?

But basically it involves two teams and and they beat balls into goals and get ten points per goal, with a defence goalies on each side too, that makes sense.

The bit that doesn't make sense is The Golden Snitch, which is worth 150 points of caught, and ends the game. Apparently it is the only thing that ends the game.

Now, given that the catching of The Golden Snitch is worth 15 goals, it makes sense that you have to get 16 goals to make it worth your team not catching the Snitch. That seems to me quite a few.

Here's some questions:

a) If you were a Beater, or in fact anyone other than a Seeker (the guy/gal who goes after the Golden Snitch), wouldn't you feel a bit useless on the team?
b) If you were the team Captain, wouldn't it make a lot of sense to spend more time just working out strategy that involved sabotaging the other team's Seeker's efforts so your team's Seeker could get to the Snitch fastest, rather than bothering with trying to score goals?
c) Since the Snitch is worth 150 points AND ends the game, not only does it make sense to make the Snitch a priority, but wouldn't it also make sense to work out some kind of signal system so that if your team is trailing by more than 150 points, your Seeker doesn't actually catch the Snitch, but instead puts his/her efforts into stopping the other Seeker from catching it? And that you only actually catch it when you are winning or are less than 150 points behind?

How come there are games when someone has caught the Snitch but they've lost anyway, you'd think professionals would do better than that!

I think I am really missing something. I would be very grateful if someone could explain what all the fuss about Quidditch was. Since the Seeker was so powerful in relation to everything else, disproportionately so, I felt it actually took away from the game. It lacked real suspense and drama.

At any rate I'm sorry but I could never get that excited about Quidditch, I guess I am too nerdy to even be really into sports :)