What makes people irrational thinkers?

[Belacqua]

people like you and Neo, who want/need that

I can't speak for Neo, of course. But I'm not clear on what it is that you think I want or need. 

I find theology fascinating, though I spend a lot of time reading other things too. (Currently I'm researching the roots of 20th century Japanese "decadent" literature. The authors (e.g. Nagai Kafu) claimed to be following in the footsteps of the European Decadents, but it seems pretty clear to me that they are firmly in a native tradition of eccentric writers and artists. This feeds into a larger thesis that I have, that imported systems provide new vocabulary and fresh enthusiasm, but almost always serve as a means of reviving something old. This applies to things like the importation of Buddhism into America. If this comes together properly I expect to publish something on the topic.)

I enjoy the beauty and wisdom of theology. I acknowledge that it's too hard for me to draw some kind of final conclusion one way or the other. 

it still asks us to believe that a complex and infinitely powerful being

Thomas says that God is absolutely simple, with no parts. It is omnipotent not in the sense that it can do anything (which Thomas doesn't claim) but in the sense that all potencies are activated by it and aimed at it. 

it still doesn't appear to even address the question 'why/how something rather than nothing?'

I think the Five Ways do address that issue. Or at least theology in general does, in that it tries to show that since there is, self-evidently, something, then the existence of this something requires an absolutely simple actus purus in order to exist. I'm not sure in what way this "kicks the can" a step further. The goal is to show that all contingencies require a necessity. This necessity is not a temporal beginning point, but the end of an essential or logical chain. (And as always, getting from this necessary being to the God of the Bible requires a great deal of additional argument.)

But I also think that there's a tendency to put too much weight on the Five Ways, which were not meant as some kind of indisputable syllogism. They are more like a course syllabus, with each step requiring a huge amount of background knowledge. They certainly aren't meant to be self-evident. 

by basically appealing to the necessity of things in the future (ie the the Five Ways considered a necessary explanation for the universe as we know it... and I might add, a very human-centric view of that universe, which not everyone agrees with), to explain the presence of things in the past. 

I think I don't understand either part of this. In what way do the Five Ways ask us to believe something about the future? In what way are they human-centered? Of course not everyone agrees with them, that's clear. 

necessity of the Five Ways to this bigger question of why/how God came to be/always existed, if you indeed do.

Well, the Five Ways are just one sort of shorthand summary of an enormous system. And personally I've never felt they're the most important part. I suspect that modern people point to them because they seem like they ought to be easy to deal with. 

Obviously Thomas thought that God has no beginning and no end, and that this is part of what it is to be a necessary being. 

But I may not be getting your point properly, so I'll be happy to try again if I've missed it.