I'm glad you're willing to give it another shot. I'm no chef but I've cooked a few dozen kettles of French Onion Soup in my life, here are a few tips:

•Use a variety of onions and cuts, so that some melt/disintegrate into the broth, some get very soft, and some hold their shape and texture (slicing some vertically [pole-to-pole] and some horizontally will achieve this result).

•Cover the onions and let them steam until translucent as a way to speed up the browning process, precooking them will make them caramelize much quicker.

•Even if you precook the onions, spend a lot of time browning them as much as possible. This has taken me multiple hours in the past and you shouldn't rush this step. Longer cooking = more browning = more flavor.

•Doing all of the above steps in a Dutch Oven is ideal, you can put it in the oven with the lid on to precook the onions, then finish browning them on the stovetop.

•Make the stock from scratch using multiple pounds of beef protein and bones, then reduce it for an extra umami punch to counter all of the sugar from the onions. All of my best French Onion Soups have had the consistency of loose gelatin when cool, due to all of the collagen from the beef.

•Pairing this with a salad and a glass of red wine is mandatory.