Frank,
The Coolcans are good film scanners, so I'm a bit puzzled why you didn't like the output. Granted, scanning is a bit of a black art, and I've never liked the results straight out of the scanner, but the Coolscan are not crap. Have you tried fiddling with different settings or adjusting the colour, contrast and brightness in Photoshop?
Cliff Patterson, one of the photo nutters here, has a Coolscan 9000 so maybe he could give you some tips to try. Several other people here are hardcore flatbed scanners and I'm sure they can help you, too.
Joe
P.S. You might want to upload an example of a duff film scan, as it would help identify where the problem is.