So is go 1.0 finally useable?

I've read they ditched GNU make in favor of something more suited.

I am tempted to try it but am still traumatized from my last attempt.

Go's GC was never intended to be final, just a stopgap until some awesome GC from IBM could be used. Unfortunately IBM still hasn't completed it, so for now we're stuck with the crappy one. The GC's behavior is an implementation detail, not part of the language spec; it can (and undoubtedly will) be changed later. Further, the authors were clear that "1.0" didn't mean "nothing left to do," but just that 1.0 code should continue to be backwards-compatible with subsequent versions (something that the earlier releases did not guarantee.)