Equipment Issues

Just read my dil's post and saw her beautiful pizza that she made.  Dawn, it looks great and I'm sure tasted the same!  So what is my problem with my pizzas?  I think I have equipment issues out the wazoo, not to discredit my dil on her superb achievement.  First it was my sewing machine and now my stove that I'm realizing might be the problem.  The other day I decided to finish up some bread flour I had in the freezer and make a loaf of french bread.  I used to make this all the time in the breadmaker on Saturdays when the girls and I had soup day.  It was delicious.  I've been  in a real slump lately with the recipes for dough that I've been trying.  There's a lot of them out there that are really soft and that just isn't working for me.  So anyway, I made up the same recipe I used to but in the mixer and the dough was great.  Then I put it in the oven to bake and, nothing, it didn't even brown.  The inside texture was doughy and it was awful.  Like I said I've been having trouble with my pizzas and even talked to my dil about my crust not even browning on the stone.  She mentioned how she uses her stone but doesn't even preheat it and from the looks of it comes out picture-perfect.  I was really disgusted with my dough, especially after bragging about it to my hubby.  I decided, long overdue I know, to put an oven thermometer in to check the temp.  It was low and kind of unpredictable so I adjusted it according to the book so I would be 35 degrees higher.  Last night I made a batch of biscuits and checked the temp first.  It was still off so I turned the oven 25 degrees higher that it was supposed to go.  The biscuits cooked in the lowest amount of time  - browned and all.  I have to say though I'm still leery of baking another loaf of bread or pizza for fear of it not turning out.  But I think I really do need one of those stones like my dil!