Not at all trapped. you can avoid the Speed Dial if you choose. See discussion here about the two Opera extensions-- Homepage in New Tab, and the Custom New Page

http://forums.opera.com/topic/3491/no-flexibility-to-show-up-menu-bar-neither-an-option-to-update-the-opera-browser/2

It's a quite advanced speed dial, and if you experiment, you will see that you can -- when you drag one bookmark/thumbnail on top of another -- create a folder for each speed dial position if you choose . . . So Opera seeminly assumes many users will prefer to make use of it. But with the extensions I note in the discussion thread above, you can make excellent use of Opera with a normal/traditional home page, and your new links can be more of the same. And there are users, for sure, who do just that. It's your choice how you want to use the browser. And there is the ability to easily do that.

Or you can start normally -- setting up your own home page, and the new tab page as you want -- and experiment a little on the side, with the possibilities in the Speed Dial. Whatever

And you don't have to use the Speed Dial for your searches. (You can even delete the Google Search Bar from the Speed Dial page if you like by just going into Power User Mode) See discussion at: http://newsblog.wti.com/index.php/2013/11/opera-19-developer-update-how-to-enable-operas-power-user-mode/. Per that discussion though, it's important to go Alt P, to go to settings, then click outside the search box one time. Right after that follow the instructions in the link above, which directs you to use the Arrow Keys. That one click outside the search box, not mentioned in the discussion is important.

If you look at the threads I first sent you, you can add any Search Engine to Opera by just going to the main webpage of that search engine, and right clicking on the search bar. You then click on adding the search engine to Opera. You'll get a one letter code (at the most two), and if it's not an Opera-approved default search engine, all you have to do is type, let's say for DuckDuckGo, a "d" [space} [search query] in the main address window of Opera. If it's not a Opera default search, but one you added, all you have to do is type one letter in the main address bar. Now that's not a lot That way, you don't have to do a search at all from the Speed Dial.

And of course, with the Disconnect Search extension (the link of which I provided you) you can also use the main Opera address bar (without having to type at all the one letter code), and conduct throughly private searches.

You are not really inhibited with Opera in doing private searches. Opera limited the default search engines, because of a concern that some of them were being hijacked by adware and malware, taking users to unsafe sites.