importing db as text files

What's the big deal with importing text files?  I have a 70 MB file to import
and it's been one problem after another.  I used the copy command and it appears
that it's just not possible. I finally massaged the file into a .sql file and
ran that using \i db.sql but that failed too because I overlooked ' in names
like D'Adario.  The other problem I encountered was that a numeric field had
to have data in it, pg would not default to the default value.  So instead of
massaging all the data again I decided to change the data type for that column.
This is my first experience with postgresql and I'm wondering if I should expect
to encounter similar pain as I go further into this?  So far it's been very
painful trying to do what I thought would be easy and what I think should be
easy.

PostgreSQL 7.3.4 on linux redhat 9