Scott, quit opening the door and let it smoke. When you start to see smoke, from the hole, does it smell like wood smoke, or meat juice (like on the grill)? There's a difference, my friend. Just for fun, try keeping that door closed for the duration of the smoke, and see what happens. Even when it looks like no more smoke is coming out of the blow hole (that's what I call the exhaust hole on top), the box is still filled with smoke. If you open the door, more than necessary, you are disrupting the process of smoldering the wood and producing smoke, risking combustion, and letting valuable smoke escape.
Now, before you take offense, look, again, at your statement: "I used the cherry on 9 racks of baby back ribs on Friday and they turned out AWESOME!! Well, that's what the people we were catering for said, anyway." That's powerful stuff! Sometimes, we are much more analytical - and critical - than are our eaters! We also tend to overthink things, too (I used to be really bad about that). I am absolutely convinced that the smokinlicous wood is, by far, the best smoking wood I've used, and will stake my reputation on that. With that said, we also have to let it do its job, which is to smoke. One thing you need to do is find the "hot spots" in your smoke box. Some time, take a handful of cheap chunks, spread them out evenly in your smoke box, and run it on 250 for about an hour. Let them cool, and check out the chunks. You'll see the hot spot of your element, and adjust accordingly. The electric is a different animal, but you can certainly tame the animal and make it work for you!
