Has anyone had better success with Blurb (online books) than I have?

Question

Blurb has been such a disappointing experience for me - I hope Adobe re-thinks aligning LR4 with them. 
After printing my first book ($70), the page numbers were cut off, page colors way off, text off center and author's name cut off of the bottom hard cover - all within the LR4 template guidelines.  When chatting (no phone calls possible by the way) with customer service, no response on my issue for days.  When I sent an e-mail asking for an update they replied that if I asked about my issue again that my case would be sent to the back of the line.  When I asked to speak with a customer service manager (hoping for a normal person) I was sent a reply with Blurb's return policy link.  Finally, when they sent a note that they would promise to re-print the book (so late it will miss my special event & presentation of my book since this "chat" dialog took 2 weeks to complete and the printing another 10 days) they said the issue is "now resolved".
This group is not up to the standards of Adobe customers in my opinion.  I hope others have had better experiences.

Answer 1

After my initial poor results with my Blurb book, I thought I would spend more time with it as I love the idea of using LR4 to create beautiful books.  I spent a couple hours watching both the Blurb and LR4 tutorials on book making and learned much about this process.  I found a few things that really helped and used my first "bad" book to use as a reference as I created the replacement and another great 11" x 13" book as well.
First, LR4 has a new "soft proofing" tool in the Develop Module (lower left by the view options).  This is invaluable for the book making and will help tremendously with the underexposure and "off color" problems that seem to be an issue with many users.  Set the profile to Srgb (as this is the profile that Blurb uses) and use "Relative" intent.  Then use the soft proofing tool with the side-by-side comparison.  This mode will show you what the results of your adjustments should look like when printed in your book - such a fantastic tool!  This is also great, of course, for printing as it saves a lot of paper by hitting your "sweet spot" with the first prints (use your printer/paper selection for the profile in this case).  You'll likely see that your images need to be bumped up a third to half a stop of exposure (or more) to achieve the desired exposure level.  It also shows you any over/under saturation problems that will affect your images.
Second, I stayed well inside the white "text safe" line to keep my text from being cut off the page near the edges.  I found adding an additional 5% or so to the safety net was helpful.
Blurb took only a week to print my first "re-print", and a week to print 3 more books that I made after that - very fast turn around.  These books have fantastic quality and make handsome gifts. I love the wrap around cover image, end pages, and papers. I used the Pro Line Pearl Photo & found it to be quite beautiful & rich.  I paid the $10 for the Blurb sample material kit just to see the other options available.
I now think Blurb is a lot of fun to use with fantastic quality.  The results, I found in my experience after 5 books now, has a direct correlation with the amount of time spent learning about the process.  However, the above info alone will hopefully save a few folks some time and give you a satisfying book making experience.  Now that I feel I have a good handle on the LR4 Book Module, with predictable results, I think I may find this addicting!