You are not misreading the ability and it is not equivalent to a mass cure light wounds. ALL living creatures (if curing) are affected by Channel - even your foes. Unless you take a feat to gain some control on that. M-CLW is selective. Channel can be used to attack undead OR cure the living, bit not both. M-CLW can cure your friends at the same time it harms some undead (who get saves for half damage).
But, in general, YES Channel does way more curing potential than anything in AD&D2.
In a lot of AD&D games, Clerics never seemed to cast anything but Cure spells. You'd fight some battles, then cast all your healing, then (since that wasn't enough) you'd rest for the night to get some more healing spells, cast them too, then return to the dungeon.
In Pathfinder, being a Cleric is more fun. You can cast all your spells offensively and still heal your party.
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I'm a newcomer to Pathfinder, just getting back into playing d20 style RPG's. In college I used to play in a weekly AD&D 2.0 but much as changed between then and now.
My question has to do with channeling positive energy. The rulebook states that when a cleric uses his ability to channel positive energy, it can either cure damage to all living creatures or cause damage to all undead within a 30' radius.
The way I'm reading this seems to be way overpowered. If a cleric can cure d6x(cleric level/2) to all within this range, it seems to me to be a lot like a Mass Cure Light Wounds (a 5th level Cleric spell), which cures d8+(cleric level) of damage within a radius.
My question is this... am I misreading the ability, or is a cleric's channel positive energy ability really equivalent to a Mass Cure Light Wounds?
Healing is, perhaps, too abundant in pathfinder. That said, you are reading it right. That said, there are distinct limitations to Channelling which can make it impractical quite often.
First issue is that it heals or harms without regard to allies or enemies. There are feats to fix this, but without spending your precious few cleric feats, you need to carefully use this so it doesn't heal allies at the cost of healing enemies or harm enemies at the cost of harming allies. There will often be encounters where you can't use Channel because it would do more harm than good.
Second issue is that it's Cha based on a caster that is using Wisdom based spellcasting. With a point buy or array method of attribute generation, this can be quite limiting. Cleric PCs are often forced to decide between a high spell DC or having superior channeling (both times per day and channel DC is CHA based). Dwarf Clerics especially often have quite nerfed channeling due to their CHA penalty.
Beyond those, the third is more trivial, but it's a matter of range. Channel is short range (30ft), so your cleric needs to be really close to the fight in order to provide support. There's not really much in the way of backfield healing for clerics in pathfinder. If you specialize, there's a few options, but nothing a stock cleric can do for long range healing. Additionally, as a burst, channeling doesn't penetrate barriers, so between the short range and requiring line of effect, channeling requires being very close to the combat (or otherwise where damage is being taken).
Anyway, if looking for more absurd Channeling vs Undead, Check out the Glory or the Sun Domains for their effect vs Undead. If looking for superior healing, check out the Healing or Community Domains.