I know my main problem is the crappy gravel I have. I will try again, maybe soon since my tank is overstocked. I know it would help the water.
Actually, gravel or sand is fine. It's all in how you take care of the nutrients and lighting. I have sand and gravel, depending on the tank and have crazy growth. I'm bad about adding nutrients, I actually had to set reminders.
Know what plants you want, know their needs:
swords are heavy root feeders, they benefit from root tabs.
Ludiwigi repens: does great with Flourish and an iron supplement, also grows great in BW (Iknowright!)
Anubias and the javas: do best attached to rock/wood, not buried, Flourish works great.
Crypts; root feeders, does well with Flourish, if you have any of the "red or bronze" varieties an iron supplement helps the color, I have a Florida Sunset crypt and some bronzes that the colors perked right up after I started dosing iron
This is what I used for 3 of my tanks:
Flora Base (added between layers of substrate, I have sand in one, gravel in the other 2) No CO2, 6500K bulbs, dosing Flourish, root tabs and iron (depending)
One tank has a mix of 3M black color quartz and Eco Complete, also CO2 running. Flourish, root tabs, iron
The rest of the tanks, excluding my BW (I only dose Flourish and iron once a month), I only dose Flourish and root tabs. No CO2, 6500K lighting, no Flora Base mixed into the substrate, nothing special. These tanks have gravel, sand or 3M.
My point is, you don't need to do anything special. Have the right lighting, right nutrients and you don't have to worry about "wrong gravel"