Airdog, stick with it - if you ever meet anyone who claims to have never ballooned/bounced, I would speculate that they are probably liars and are not worth talking to.
Interesting about the 172 and its landing charactoristics though . I learned in 152's and when I got my ticket and had a go in 172's, I made what I am told was a common mistake and assumed that as a bigger plane, it needed a faster approach/landing speed (despite what the books say!!) So, I made approaches at 70kts and guess what, the damned thing would not land. Luckily, I was on a field with a long long runway and got away with it. When I did my first night approach with an instructor at 70kts, he tore me off a strip for being stupid and ignoring the books.