Am I especially dumb, or is IPFS messaging really flaky?

For example, I still don't understand how to access their resources. Do I need a special client?

And this is coming from a person who LOVES torrents...

There are a few client options; the most widely used one (to my knowledge) is https://github.com/ipfs/kubo for CLI. There's also a desktop client that's pretty nice: https://docs.ipfs.tech/install/ipfs-desktop/