dp360

I truly sympathize about the situation with your father and let me offer my condolences. I lost my father recently and he was in pretty bad shape, too.
As for your anti-Chrysler advocacy, that is certainly in your right to do so. I can't say I blame you - I've been outspoken against numerous products/manufacturers over the years that I've felt have done me wrong. I just want to point out something about your opening line: "Just wanted to let Chrysler know after 20yrs of Chrysler products NEVER AGAIN!" Well, this forum is unaffiliated with Chrysler Group LLC, so unless someone from the company is monitoring it, you're really not telling them anything here. I would suggest contacting the customer service number listed in your owners manual. Just because you may have expressed your grievances with your dealer doesn't mean you have expressed them with the manufacturer. Unfortunately, there is a dealer/manufacturer disconnect and sometimes you just have to bypass the dealer completely.
Regarding your problems, the shifting doesn't sound normal, although its very hard to diagnose over the internet. I certainly don't experience what I'd refer to as "harsh" shifting though I have observed the tendency for the transmission to shift up to sixth gear (assuming you have the six speed) faster than I'd like and for it to hold on to sixth longer than I think it should. As others have pointed out, auto-stick is a good workaround to that problem, but it really isn't that big of an issue for me that I have to resort to it often. Also, someone else mentioned that they reported hard shifting to their tech and, after re flashing the PCM, the shifting was smooth again. So maybe you should insist your dealer do this and perhaps go to another dealer if they refuse.
Lastly, the brake problems have been well documented here and elsewhere but are still perplexing to me. It seems to me that for everyone I find complaining about sub 20,000 mi brake wear, I can find another that has no abnormal brake wear at all. I wont even speculate on that. All I can say is that anyone with a Journey should take advantage of the open spoke rims and just keep an eye on the brakes. I can easily "get a finger on" each brake pad and determine if they are wearing thin. Luckily for me, after 6,600 miles, I can still report a lot of "meat" on my pads. At this rate, they'll be fine by the time my 12,000 mi brake warranty is up, but who knows what they'll be like at 20,000. If I see them getting thin, I can replace the pads a whole lot cheaper than the rotors, and that's the whole point of keeping an eye on them.

Driving style will have more impact on fuel economy than anything else. My wife is a binary driver - it's either full on or full off with the accelerator. I'm real smooth. No matter what the vehicle, I always get 15-20% better fuel economy than she does.
My 3.5L V6 SXT gets 19-20 MPG (U.S.) around town (which is a 60/40 mix of hwy/city driving). On a recent road trip I averaged 25 MPG hwy, but it was really 23 one way and 27 the other.