Grrrrrr argh or how my weekend went

So the plan was to hang shelves and get the bulk of the remaining boxes emptied and our place a little more livable. Not that it's not already livable, the bedrooms are sleep in ready, the kitchen and bathroom are fully functioning and the living room has couch and TV all set up. It's just the last few boxes of extra glassware (read: beer glasses and other bar ware) miscellaneous knick-knack, art pieces and all those things I had planned on purging before the fire happened so that I wouldn't have to deal with them on this side of the move.

Glitch #1:
Strange stud readings.
A few years ago we splurged and bought a fancy laser pointer/stud finder to help with hanging all the paintings and photographs we have accumulated over the course of my art career and our relationship. the problem is that the house we've moved into is over 50 years old. Where a reading tells us to drill for a stud no studs are found, or the studs are so far behind the plaster that instead of getting our shelves hung there was just frustration. Plan B was to use Drywall Anchors.

Glitch #2
Electrical
Our fancy reader also tells us where electrical wires have been routed through the walls. All the places we wanted to hang our shelves have electricity readings from one end of the wall to the other and top to bottom too.

Glitch #3
Drill problems.
The stud readings we did get just didn't match up with our pre-drilled Ikea shelving holes. We thought about customizing the hanging units of our shelves by drilling new holes that would match up with our stud readings. Anchors would help if the studs were too far away from the wall and we'd be covered all around. The drill we own is not powerful enough to drill said holes into the steel supports.

Now, neither one of us are construction savvy. I'm sure we're going about things all ass backwards. We're just doing things the best way we know how to and or can figure out. In the meantime we have no shelves up and still have boxes and boxes to go through. Did mention that I don't like moving?