You're right...K-Lite is garbage, always has been.
If you want a player with integrated codecs independent of the computer you're using you're stuck with three choices.
1.) VLC
2.) The KMPlayer
3.) GOM Player
I haven't used VLC in ages because KM has a much more feature-rich set to improve video quality and it actually can play those .flv videos from youtube properly. GOM I only installed once to try it and its halfway between the functionality of VLC and KM.