"So yeah, what does my chili lack?"

I can't find your recipe, Mrrzy, so I'll just say that I add cumin seeds to my chili early in the cooking, and at the end I take out a little liquor, cool it, stir in a tablespoon of cocoa powder, and mix it back   in. Not cocoa mix, pure cocoa powder.

Also, no-salt tomatoes taste better than canned and salted. I don't add any salt to our food (BP), letting people add what they want from the salt shaker at the dinner table.