I have had many of the same problems with the FS4000 that you mentioned, however, I have had pretty good luck with 'ignoring' them. For the first month I used it, I realized that I did have it sitting too close to a PC speaker, moving the speaker made a big difference, though the scanner is still only a foot from the PC. As for the dark and soot in the scans, I have the same thing, HOWEVER, I have this problem in the preview mode only. These are not there at all after I tell it to go ahead and scan, After the scan (mine are usally at 2000 dpi), I make my tone and color corrections in the applications (in my case, Photo-Paint). I agree that it tends to scan dark, but overall, I am very pleased with the scanner.