Yeah the hangout interface is pretty bad. We've been able to get our viewers to completely avoid the hangout interface and use Crowdcast for all interactions. Right now only the speakers have to deal with the hangout interface. The host invites them directly to the hangout.

Although it works fine 90% of the time, we were able to run the largest virtual conf in history, every once in a while hangouts does still do strange things. Luckily for that reason we made Crowdcast decoupled from the video service, you can use it with Livestream, Ustream, or anything with an embed code.