Yeah, I felt the same when I found Maslow. But the good thing about going through the ideas yourself is that you have understood it way more deeply than by just having the knowledge of it. Of course, the knowledge would get you faster to the point of understanding. That is, if you had had any motivation to follow the logic of the knowledge.
I think the problem is really about the name "self-actualization", and the focus on "reaching the full potential". Personally I like the term "healthy personality" a lot better because it doesn't sound so utilitarian. Obviously, when you read Maslow, you will see that he doesn't mean the full potential as an utilitarian would think of it, but still, naming it the way he does creates confusion and will probably keep some people away from the theory.
If you want to study the subject, I would recommend Erich Fromm, Alan Watts, Kazimierz Dabrowski, Victor Frankl, and well, obviously some of the eastern classics, like Tao Te Ching, I Ching, Art of War. Also, Carl Rogers seems to be talking about the same stuff, but I find him really boring compared to Fromm and Maslow, who both are very inspirational. Dabrowski will have a slightly different view because he sees psychological trauma as something essential, while Maslow really doesn't comment too much about that. I think that Dabrowski's theory is true in some cases, and if you compare it to zen buddhism, you'll see that the job of the guru is to get the student to question everything. I think this comes pretty close to what Dabrowski is getting at. The thing is that if you go through an experience that he is talking about, there is no one to guide you, so it is quite possible that you actually go insane, while in the zen approach the guru is there to safely break your illusion and then show by his own example that it is ok to not have any concept of the reality. Frankl is an interesting read too, but I think that he really misses the point by saying that a man must have a meaning. I think his booklet can be interpreted differently, so that it isn't really meaning they have, but a thorough trust in the basic goodness of humanity that cannot be destroyed even in the concentration camp.