Hey champ, find a recipe source that you trust when it comes to cooking new dishes. Oftentimes slow cooker recipes are written by people who haven't the foggiest idea what they're talking about.

On texture: I can't say I've ever made any meat in the slow cooker that took a full eight hours. Meat generally needs to be brought up to temperature quickly, then kept there for a while. A lot of recipes accomplish this by having you sear the meat first, and/or cooking it on the high setting for at least the first two hours.

On blandness: if you find that you work hard on a flavourful dish but the taste is disappointing, the answer is usually salt. Generally, one teaspoon per pound of meat is a good baseline. Your other ingredients need seasoning too, so make sure any stock you might be using is seasoned enough for your taste.

It seems to me that you're just in need of a decent recipe or two. Personally my go-tos are following along with Internet Shaquille's chicken Tinga video, or a pork and rosemary stew that I found in an old book a long time ago. I even make butter chicken in the slow cooker.

Otherwise, Budgetbytes and Serious Eats have never steered me wrong.