D&D 3E: The struggle continues

I've now statted out a room and a half in my first homegrown 3E dungeon and already I am hating it. My biggest problem so far is that I don't like setting difficulty levels. It's not a decision I want to make. Older versions of D&D had a fixed, hidden difficulty level. You want to search for hidden stuff? Roll a d6, on a '1' you find it. (1 or 2 if you got pointy ears.) Thief skills were all do-or-die rolls. Besides being work I don't want to do (Answering questions like "is this DC too high? Is it too low? What sort of skill level will the PCs likely to have?") , GM-set DCs have always strained my own suspension of disbelief. Sure, the Dungeon Master makes all sorts of arbitrary decisions that directly impact the fate of our heroes, but to me this one makes it too easy to see the man standing behind the curtain. That's why Savage Worlds is one of the few target number systems that gets me jazzed. It sets a hardwired basic TN for all activity.

Is the old way unrealistic? I suppose so. Of course, I do occasionally toy with the hidden TNs. "This secret door is extra well hidden. Players must roll a d8 to find this puppy." But most of the time I leave them alone. I like the systems where the only issue most of the time is how good the PCs is at the task they are attempting. That's what I like about Call of Cthulhu. You don't need to hand out stupid skill roll modifiers in that game. The PCs will rise and fall on their own skill ratings. I honestly don't know if I can do this. Running D&D 3E is okay, but writing my own dungeon is driving me nuts. Maybe I should find a system that doesn't make me nuts, even if I lose players in the process. Or maybe I just need to get some modules and run 'em. Neither solution is ideal.