Sorry to hear you're having a bad experience. We're here and listening, however these forums are generally not the best method of finding support.
Would you mind submitting a support ticket here: https://www.x1.com/support/x1_search_submit_case.html so we can take a crack at resolving this issue for you?
X1 Search is now able to index a whole lot more files on the drive than in previous versions (including many items that we previously didn't have visibility into), and I suspect that's part and parcel of some of the behavior that you're seeing.
The PSA buttons being greyed out are generally related to two things:
1. Stale Outlook registry keys causing issues (a la https://help.x1.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001757351-X1-Search-Outlook-PSA-Buttons-Nonfunctional)
2. A known bug in MAPI (the communications layer between Outlook and X1 Search) that causes emails that are un-cached on the file system (meaning stored on the Exchange Server and not physically present in the PST/OST on the machine). We've improved on that behavior, but we're working around a Microsoft bug, so it's by no means completely fixed.
I can't tell what the particular issue is without reviewing logs, so please submit a ticket here: https://www.x1.com/support/x1_search_submit_case.html
If we can't get you up and running on 8.6, we'll roll you back to the previous version, however the checkbox in the "Options" window to disable all future automatic update checks is specific to 8.6, so you'll be prompted to upgrade from time to time.