We decided to get a tile saw again, but NOT from Oxnard Home Depot.  I went to the rental yard at the Camarillo Home Depot.  I touched the tile saws and ran the platten back and forth and picked out the saw I wanted.  As I was telling the clerk my tale of woe, he said, "Do you want this brand new one?"  I looked where he was pointing and there was a shiny tile saw with tons of accessories.  Who knew tile saws had accessories?

We fired it up and it was nearly magical.  One of the accessories was a fence that made a big improvement in the speed of setting up the cuts.  We cut all new strips and the worst ones we cut on the new saw were better than 95% of the ones we cut on the old saw.