There are several reasons why a recipe might not turn out the way you expect. The first is water. All beers need to start with clean, preferably low hardness water. Its much easier to add minerals than it is to remove them. Generally, pilsners need soft water, and a lot of stouts and darker beers need hard water. If you're having trouble duplicating particular styles you might have your water analyzed or try changing your water source. If you live in a municipality and have village or city water, you can call the water department and get a copy of the mineral analysis.

Also, sometimes extract recipes that come with a kit can instruct the brewer to add several pounds of sugar to the boil. This should almost never be done. Always replace the sugar with malt extract, unless you are priming for bottling.

Using all-grain is cheaper than DME (dried malt extract for those reading this who don't brew), or liquid extracts. I buy my grain in bulk, so I'm getting my base malt (usually 2-row) for around $1/pound. Malt extract is around $3 or $4/pound, unless you buy it in bulk which is still around $2/pound. Extract will yield slightly more gravity per gallon of wort than grain, but the difference doesn't compare to the price difference.

I haven't put together a wheat beer recipe yet, and its not quite stout weather. So I'll give you a recipe for a dark mild. This was one of the Big Brew Day recipes of 2009. I've brewed it twice and both times it turned out great. This is an easy drinking dark British ale with a mild bitterness and some malt character. The final product should be around 3.5% abv. The OG will be around 1.035.

All-Grain:
5.25 lb 2-Row English Pale Malt
11 oz English Crystal 55 L
6 oz Crystal 120 L
3 oz British Chocolate Malt
3 oz Brown Malt (if unavailable, substitute Biscuit Malt or Amber Malt)

0.75 oz East Kent Golding 5.8%AA for 60 minutes (bittering hops)
3/4 tsp Irish Moss

White Labs WLP002 English Ale Yeast

Mash grains in 2 gallons of water and hold at 156f for 60 minutes. Sparge with 170f water and collect enough runoff to produce about 6 gallons of wort. (If I'm anticipating a vigorous boil, I usually add some water for evaporation to make about 6.5 gallons of wort. Its better than over-sparging.) Bring to a boil and add the bittering hops. Boil another 45 minutes and add the irish moss. Boil another 15 minutes. After the boil, chill to 70f and rack to fermenter. Ferment at around 67f for one week then rack to secondary and age for another week. Rack to keg or add bottling sugar and bottle. You can force carbonate in the keg, or if bottling add 5/8c corn sugar or 1/2c table sugar for priming.

Below is a link to the actual recipe on the American Homebrewers Association website. There is also a link to the extract version.

If you're looking for more recipes, I'd look at some more of the Big Brew Day recipes, and at some of the recipe databases out there. Also, there is a podcast available by the brewing network and they do a "can you brew it" segment on one of their internet-radio shows ("The Jamil Show"). It might be a good way to try out some recipes and then see how other brewers like them. They won't turn out exactly the same mostly because everyone is using different water sources.

http://wiki.homebrewersassociation.org/SSMinnowMildAle-AllGrain
http://wiki.homebrewersassociation.org/SSMinnowMildAle-Extract
http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/