Learning to use iambic paddles: am I just bad

I'm new to CW, pretty good at receiving, and trying to find my groove when it comes to sending. I am not new to using my hands and brain, just in case anyone jumps to that assumption.

People seem to like iambic paddles and I had some store credit to use, so I picked one up. A basic but quite nice heavy metal unit that can be adjusted to be just about touch-sensitive. As far as I can tell, the key itself works great. The operator, unfortunately, is having trouble adapting to it.

Here's what I've found so far:

• Slower is not better (in terms of feel). Below 20 WPM is horrible as you start to feel the lag built in to using the keyer. 24-25 WPM actually feels like a sweet spot.
• But then, Iambic B gets sloppy (or at least, stressful to create characters reliably). I need to be very fast on the release to create an A as opposed to an R. I feel like I'm withdrawing my fingers after each character to make sure they don't send an extra dit. Despite being able to make single characters quickly, the idea of actually stringing characters together with proper spacing while using Iambic B feels utterly beyond me.
• I'm a bit more comfortable with Iambic A--it stops when I stop. But it also feels like it's going to be sub-optimal to go deep into learning A if I'm learning an iambic mode.

I was feeling frustrated, so went into my garage and made a single paddle key. Just a sawblade set into a rectangle of cork, some crimped heatshrink for ergonomics, with a couple of adjustable posts on either side. Not the prettiest key in the world. It is unlikely to hold up to much abuse. But the experience of using it was night and day! I nudge it in one direction for a dit, another direction for a dah. Nothing inserts extra dits or dahs. It seems absolutely optimal. I can use it at 25 WPM without feeling like I need to take my hand off the paddle between letters. I feel like I'm working with the timing of the keyer rather than fighting it.

What are your experiences here? I get that I could learn to use the dual paddles if I gave it more time, but is it worth the investment just to have an easier time calling CQ? Should I just pick up/make a nice single paddle and go with that?

Hope this doesn't come across as a whine post--of course this is all just fun in the end, even when it's driving me crazy to reliably make an L with the paddles--I'm hoping that you either ran into the same problems and just broke through with time, or you and your single paddle setup have had many happy QSOs together and you would never think of using iambics.

Another data point I'd love to get is your handed-ness. I'm left handed but I do most things (other than write) with my right hand. Wondering if this is a factor.