We had a Russsel Hobbs one that was prone to embedding the paddle a long way into the loaf. It did bake a nice loaf though. We scrapped it after a few years when the metal clips it used no longer reliably held the bowl in place.

The Panasonic we've had for a few years now, is the best we have owned and we get the most consistent "same loaf every time" with this one.

I think that with any bread maker, you may well find that you want to experiment a little with the recipe ingredients (eg, a little less salt, a touch more yeast, etc.) to arrive at something that suits you and the machine best but, in my limited experience, you shouldn't be wasting loaves and ingredients doing this. A loaf that say hasn't risen quite as far as you'd like should still be quite edible.

That said, I don't think that any tinkering would have helped BWM. His machine does sound like an all round disaster from day one.