I wish I could give you a solution. I just purchased the Swift 3 and am having the same problems. I contacted Acer and tried reinstalling touchpad drivers, adjusting mouse settings, uninstalling HID-compliant settings through Device Manager and on and on. The touchpad still isn't working right, doing all the things you mentioned in your post. And you're right, you have to literally pound the pad to register the click.
Since I just purchased the computer, I'm probably going to return it. I can't deal with all the frustrations of this.
