Now look at this mess...

There are actually two control panels. Three if you count the fact that all the control panel applets are thrown about in the Other menu option.
The first control panel is this "Advanced settings" one, which is exactly where you would expect it to be under the Settings menu option. Except it isn't very advanced. Instead of icons it just uses a list of text-based commands, and displays a really goofy 2-bit graphic that I would expect out of a machine from the '80s.
The second control panel is unhelpfully located in the other menu, along with all the other applets. This is the traditional control panel I would have expected to see in the first place.

Once again, you can only have Mint in grey or green. Or blue or white.
Notice that there can be two separate themes for the desktop and the menu bars. Even selecting a theme for the menu bars fails to change the theme of the top bar.

Since this is the no codec version I cannot hope to play a DVD, but inserting a DVD to see what it would do brought up these two dialog boxes which unsurprisingly ask basically the exact same thing.

Here's a fail: even though I ejected the DVD it still has an icon on the desktop, and the removable media thing still is there. Apparently it can't recognize the fact that I have ejected the DVD and it wants me to eject it again.

Another fail is in the help system. It would appear as though there are no help files installed. Well now how useful is that?!?