I'm looking for a new simple to program & operate 2 meter only ht & mobile rig. I'm tired of rigs with fancy bells & whistles, difficult menus, etc. I do not want to carry an operator's manual with me all the time. Anything out there where an engineering degree is not required?

Welcome to the forum.
Alinco / ADI - were both WYSWYG type transceivers.
They had a button to access the VFO which allowed you to tune to a specific frequency. You then picked out a PL - if any, and the split, which is + above 147.000 and - below 147.000
You then pressed the VFO button again, selected a channel and hit enter and it was saved.

That is about as easy as they come.

At the same time, the next generation of transceivers, the Kenwood 2 meter transceivers wern't much harder to program.

The purpose of the menu's is to allow each button to do more then one thing.
As in the case of my Yaesu FT 8900R, it does 4 bands simultaniously.
On the left side it does two meters, 70 cm and also 6 meters, on the right side it does 2 meters, seventy cm and also 10 meters.
The center button - I painted white, because it accesses the menu and looks like all the others.
One button accesses the VFO, while another selects bands, while another selects options such as allowing it to clone or to program from a computer, while another allows it to download.
Things like Packet, wires etc - might not interest you today, but might be something you might get into down the road, and would want one of those more complicated radios... Just something for you to think about..

Different radios does different things, and if you might work Ecomm - you want to have a dual band transceiver.

At the same time, walkie talkies have come a long way since my Radio Shack HTX 202 - which is almost impossible to program, unless you have done it before, or have a manual with you and can decypher it's contents while you program the radio.

The new walkie talkies - forget it.
About the best you can do is laminate a card and attach it to the radio, with programming instructions.
Other then Ecomm work, a walkie talkie is practically worthless from the standpoint of trying to work simplex, which is how most Ecomm work should be expected to be performed.

Alinco DR 135 TMK III
Alinco DR 635 T
Icom 2300H

Yaesu FT 1900 / FT 2900R are going to be two of the easiest mobiles to program.

I don't know of any walkie talkies of your specifications...

You might want to look for an Elmer, someone to guide you and show you how to properly operate those transceivers and show you how to program them.

I would suggest that you buy a Yaesu FT 8800 or 8900 and a programming cable and a G4HFQ software and move up - due to the fact that the 8800 and 8900 does a lot more things for a little more money.
The programming software allows you to store thousands of programs in your computer, which you write, specifically and can store in your transceiver, which you can access while you are driving down the road.

Say you lived in Western Pennsylvania.
You could write one program for Pittsburgh
Another program for Erie
Another program for central PA
Another program for northern PA
Another program for central Ohio
Another program for Maryland / WV
Another program for eastern PA...

Then, while you were driving down the road, you could access one of these other programs, and the radio will switch and the frequencies will stay the same, but the PLs will change and you can choose between a number or a 5 letter trundication - PITT - Pittsburgh, KITT - Kittanning, Derry - Derry, Indna - Indiana etc.. Or can be frequency - Pitt would be 146.790, Kitt would be 145.410, Derry - would be 145.150

The names allows you to get used to hearing the tones and the CW identifier, which learns you the channel, then when you switch to frequency, you will recognize it by the sound of the repeater.
If you get somewhere in between, you can press the center button and change the PL. If you want to save it, you can save it, if you want to go back to scan, it will revert back to the origionally programmed PL.

If you want to know what station a frequency is, you can press the button and it will show the name, and you can save it or go back to scan and it will go back to the frequency. That is the nice thing about the Yaesu - you don't have to know a lot once you learn the basic menu.