Don't feel alone. I'm still trying many of the suggestions with my MES. It wants to do exactly like you say. It smokes great on the way up, but once it levels off, and the element doesn't come on much, it doesn't want to burn the chips. I have a Big Kahuna, but I'm still trying to get my MES to work right on it's own. It seems to be doing better now that it's colder out, but Below 150* is still a problem. Many of others on here say they don't have a problem, but I'm with you. I love it in every other way. Maybe you could try a Bradley---They have a seperate element for the smoking, but then you have to pay a lot for the disks---$20 for every 16 hours of smoke.
Just my 2 cents.
BC