Youngster cruise is tough because the experience varies so much from person to person, ship to ship, etc. I had a great youngster cruise: went underway for about 10 days, got a ton of liberty, got to watch helo ops, and talk to lost of interesting people to get a feel for what the mystical fleet is like.
Other people have the experience you mids described, and other people get to go do really cool stuff: on a deployed aircraft carrier, going to Bahrain, etc. It's difficult when you have to put over 1100 people, not including NROTC guys, on ships in the Navy (which all have vastly different expectations of mids...) for them all to have really good, meaningful experiences. Don't forget you were also talking to youngsters, who generally refuse to find value, worth, or satisfaction in anything at USNA (kidding, but not).
You have to remember that there's really no point getting "quals" on anything as a Midshipman. Especially since you follow around an enlisted Sailor, most of the technical aspect of what they do doesn't carry over. For example, I was with a CTT2 in the electronic warfare shop. Her job was pretty boring when underway and really technical and boring when we weren't underway. Also, out of the ~1100 people in my class who got service assignments, only ~280 are going SWO. I've heard of mids, especially for 1/C cruise, being added to the watch rotation and getting quals because at that point your career path is more-or-less-kinda-sorta figured out (at any rate, if you're on SWO cruise you're probably going SWO). Sub cruise is another beast as well.
I mean, it was fun to drive around the destroyer on PROTAMID doing man overboard drills, but considering I'm going Marines not really directly applicable. What was more valuable was talking to the different Sailors and officers on the ship and learning about what they did/what they thought about it/etc.
Never heard of mids going to Eagle for 3/C summer. The guys who go to USCGA on exchange for a semester do a couple weeks of Coast Guard familiarization that might include going to Eagle. Not sure.