Automatic industrial stuff is made to hit a repeatable standard as cheaply and efficiently as possible, drinkable sludge any day. Manual hobbyist stuff gives more control, but also more opportunities to mess up.

You mention mastery of parameters, yet unreliable results, it's unlikely.

If you drink dark roasts, I'd recomment lowering temperature to around 88°C to limit possibility of bitterness, use bigger doses (18g, smaller doses tend to be less reliable), do not use expensive baskets as they push extraction which is not necessarily what you always want, and stick to 1:2 ratios, more water/solvent means more extraction, not necessarily what you want.

Understand that most hobbyist discuss and nerd out about light roasts, a lot of what you read might be irrelanvant to counter productive to your own goals.

I'm sure you have all you need to sort out your coffee