I watched about a quarter of the first episode before I had to stop. I find awkwardness- and embarrassment-based comedy deeply uncomfortable, and the show relied too heavily on that.

This was my experience exactly.

Rumor has it that Abed of Community is a better geek/autie character but I've watched scarcely more of that; this is just what I've heard said from fandom.

He is. He is decidedly different but not in a way that provokes empathetic awkwardness. Come to think of it, the difference is hard to describe. Perhaps it is that BBT seems to be aggressively asserting norms and conveying that the individuals are breaking them and should be ashamed. Whereas Abed is just, well, Abed and he doesn't care what people think of him and nobody really expects him to.