I ended up reverting back to an older version of Google Maps as well because I was experiencing similar bugs. I also missed having separate app icons for local, navigation, maps, etc... I went with Maps version 6.14.2, which I believe may have been the last version of that still had all the separate icons. It has been working well for me on my Note 2.
I also reverted my Gmail to an earlier version... I went with Gmail version 4.3.1, because I believe it was the last version available before Google updated Gmail to pre-sort all our email into the 5 different boxes... I just didn't like that.
When I was searching online for the previous versions, I came across a site named Android Drawer
http://www.androiddrawer.com/
I thought you all might be interested in it because it has a huge repository of older apps of all kinds. Just search for the app you want and pick your favorite version.
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