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It's just luck, really. Since FT aren't charging for postage, and are giving free tracking only if it's above a certain amount, they're slinging them on the not-quite-slowest plane from China, for cheapness. I've had one or two things within 10 days, mostly a fornight, and one took a month (but that one was just a couple of teeny springs which I'd forgotten to include in a larger order), so it came by trans-Pacific rower and some snail-relay team across the USA, before being lobbed onto a passing fishing smack somewhere.
Phineas Fogg would have done it quicker.
In contrast, I got an item from VaporBreak with got here in a week, and I'd only paid 2usd for the tracking, something like that. That might have been lucky, though.

Two things occur immediately - a bigger filling hole and try some silica wick. The whole notion of using an electrically conductive wick is inherently flawed anyway and offends my sense of electrical engineering. Hmm... I wonder if a silica thread/ sleeve over the SS might work.
As you say, if I can get this bugger working as I like, I will look at others, but might launch off sideways and make my own.
What I really need is something that's totally, inherently leaktight at the bottom, entirely sealed and never needs to be disturbed. A wick or feed system that's foolproof, easily made, not fiddly - whether capillary or gravity is immaterial. A heating system that's easy to install, doesn't affect the settings of anything else when it's put in, and not subject to shorts, or erratic behaviour.

As I said, I really enjoyed the taste - I will pursue that.

vapourhut.com/atomisers-cartomisers/Rebuildables/VH-Genesis
I see VH are charging £25 for the real mccoy of this piece of shit. Honestly, I don't see any real difference between the two. The parts on the clone are made well enough, it's just the original design is total shit. If I'd been relieved of twenty-five smackers for this I'd have felt thoroughly pissed off and spitting feathers. As it is, paying a mere 8quid or whatever in funny foreign money feels as though I've still paid more than it's worth, but it's cheap enough to be chalked up to a learning experience and I'm actually quite glad, in a funny way, to have tasted what a SS wick can do.

The Verti looks more like the thing and addresses a couple of the problems.
vapourhut.com/atomisers-cartomisers/Rebuildables/VH-Verti

Well, after a few hours of use, I can render a verdict on it.
When it works, it works very well, bringing out flavour and depth to the juices that the Vivi Nova and others just didn't.
Unfortunately, most of the time it doesn't really want to work, continually dipping 'Low' on the Vamo and necessitating a fiddle with the coil and pissing around again, and again, and again.
Ahah, I thought, I'll try another couple of turns, so put on 8 turns of Kanthal wire and re-oxydised the mesh. Didn't make any difference, still fiddle, poke, prod, fiddle, feck about.
Then I tried re-filling it with the normal needle I use for fiddly re-filling. Ohoh, this was priceless - every time I tried it, whatever went in the hole was squirted out of the wick, all over the top and down the side. I don't have a thinner needle as I've never needed one. The filling hole is stupidly small.
So, to sum it up - it's the biggest pile of crap I've ever paid money for and that's saying something.
Who the feck designed this? Were they stupid or just a bit mad? It's undergone absolutely feck-all useability testing and certainly isn't fit for purpose.
I really get the impression it was designed by a total amateur, who shouldn't really be allowed anywhere near any sort of equipment at all.
I was so disgusted with it, I nearly chucked it in the bin; but I decided I will address the shortcomings of this piece of crap because the flavour it produces is simply great. It needs a bigger tank, easier filling, easier coiling and easier sealing.
Apart from it being a total pile of crap, it's great.

I do that, a lot.
Thing is, so many of these actions are so routine there's nothing to distinguish them and I frequently find myself double-checking because there's no distinct memory of just having turned off the gas/immersion/light, etc; I've just done it automatically. Once or twice I've been right, though; and found the gas or immersion was left on. So, there you go.

Yeah, I looked him up after the last mention and was surprised to find he was still alive. Not for much longer, as it turned out.
There's always a feeling of connectivity (however nebulous) reading the works of a still-alive author, especially in these days of easy communication and authors being online and willing to participate in discussion, etc.
Not so, any more, with JV.

I got five stars and tried that. They told me to eff off.
Sods.