Don't make me go on my rant about how metric is probably the worst single possible system you could possibly conceive for doing scientific calculations with and almost seems deliberately designed to confuse people
I spend about six months trying to make students get that there aren't 100 cubic centimetres in a cubic metre or 100 cm-1 in a m-1 as it is..."but doesn't "centi-" mean a hundred?" they ask, and I have to reply, "yes, but this system was made up French people two hundred years ago in the five minutes in between being executed, don't expect it to actually make sense..."
I never understood your problem with the m^3. First in chemistry you mainly use litres because it is the "usual" one. And if you use cubic meters it isn't for the joy of it but because you have to see if you result is homogeneous. The problem with cubic metres is that it wasn't intented to be used at the beginning : there was the litre for that.