I had to stop using Google Plus for just this reason. At some point they decided to add a "hot" category of stories to your feed in the mobile app. There was no way to disable this 'feature' or avoid these spammy stories while still using the app. I can't say I've really missed much.
I'm taking a bit of an enforced G+ holiday, and can't say I'm all that upset.
Search comprehensiveness and speed, the ease of interaction with the Notifications pane, and a few interesting people. That's its upside.
Streams, circles, lack of filtering, overall layout, client bloat, privacy invasion, crap and noise, annoyances across other Google properties: the downsides.
Though I'm seriously wondering where the hell the smart people are these days.
