PaulP/976bar,
not questioning 976bar's cooking credentials at all - he know's his stuff.
just to give u food for thought and really the subject matter of the post - u've got to get in the mind set of accepting failure so that u can try new ideas to gradually home in on the BIR path.
my cooking times (approx): onion 45 sec, garlic 30 secs, spice 45 secs, base 3 mins - curry done in 5 mins tops.