I can’t but agree that characters are one of the most challenging parts of the study. However, they are an essential part of the language and they are definitely worth learning. Studying Chinese without learning the characters is like studying English without learning the alphabet.

For me, trying to memorize only the phonetics of each word is a waste of time. Learning characters gives me something to visualize when trying to recall a word. I’ve also noticed that learning the characters sometimes gives insight into the relationships between words, that may not be obvious from how they are pronounced. Besides, learning becomes much more effective if you can check out Chinese sites, read books and blogs written by native speakers. But this is something you can’t do without knowing the characters.