Mad at chocolate - a lesson to learn?

For some reason, chocolate and I are not friends.

I have the hardest time dipping things smoothly. I even bought Guittard chocolate couverture wafers to try out - of course, initially blaming lower quality chocolate for my woes.

My coating gets too thick and goops down all lumpy.
Then in the process of setting it down on the baking sheet, my fingers of course make a mess of the bottom edges.

Then I wonder, should I have added shortening like I see in some dipping recipes? Seemed unneccesary... but perhaps, that's what I was missing. Damn it.

So with just pure melted chocolate:
I've tried the pouring method which resulted in essentially the same shenanigans.
I've done the dipping the bottom first to have a "foot" to hold onto to dip the rest of the item. It sucks when the foot starts to melt making it even harder to shake off excess chocolate.

And of course, my favorite method which I prefer since its more "hands on" and relatively chocolate conserving, icing the item with the chocolate.

With no luck at the elusive smooth dipping, I turned to rolled fondant. Seems like the process of dipping in poured fondant would yield similar results as the chocolate dipping, and given my lack of skill in that department - PASS. And expectedly, the rolled fondant created the desired smoothness. But at what cost to the original deliciousness of the brownie enclosed? At a HIGH COST. I know some love fondant, after all, it's dough - made of sugar. But its just such an unneccesary sweetness when coupled with brownies (and cake). GORGEOUS, yes. TASTY, tbd.

And that, folks, is going to be the end of my griping.