sid
I also found dcraw and ufraw a bit lacking when I first started along the path that you are now on, 2006 in my case, so I settled on using Bibble. Corel have now purchased Bibble and market it as Aftershot Pro. I've found no reason to change and am currently using the final version of Bibble 5. Other open source alternatives are Digikam, RawTherapee and Darktable. I have to say though that having recently tried ufraw I was able to easily acheive my desired results, because I am much more aware now of what adjustment does what and how to achieve the look that I require. It does get easier the more you do it :)