I don't know that Mandos was necessarily unpleasant. It was meant as a place of thought and introspection about your life and the things that happened in it. If you had been an evil Man, Elf, or Dwarf then you might not like it there, but if you had been good then it might not be so bad. (If you were a Man you might not be there very long. More on that later in the post.)
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I doubt Mandos' Halls, are pleasant, I remember that somewhere it is stated that people there are unhappy.
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I think the part you are talking about is where Luthien is singing before Mandos and how "her sorrow was greater than their [the dead's] sorrows." I don't think that it necessarily means that you were unhappy there. If the dead were reflecting back on their lives, who would not have sorrow to think about?
I think Mandos is probably a place where happiness or sadness is irrelevant or may not exist except as a memory. You are not so concerned about what is happening now as you are with what did happen in your life. At least that's my theory. I'll be glad to hear what somebody else thinks.
On another tangent, I don't think that Men stayed in Mandos very long. When Beren died he was ready for departure very quickly and had to decide to wait for Luthien to show. Of course, Beren lived an unusually virtuous life, so maybe he did not have much to think about. Evil men might have to wait there longer.
Of course, the poor Dwarves are just stuck there until the End.
[ May 19, 2002: Message edited by: Kuruharan ]