Well, if you're not really gonna put your all into typography right now then it is probably a good idea if you do not incorporate any text into your works at all. Might sound weird but it works; trust me. I have gone through this phase. ;> I just stopped adding text into my works for a while and concentrated on the betterment of other aspects of my works. It worked. And then, after giving my attempts at making text work in tags a break, I finally, somehow, got better. Just got the much needed spark somehow, I guess. So yeah, try it out, maybe? :p
Talking about your smudge tags - if that's the case then I'd like to see some of your 'good' examples. If these are horrid by your standards then I can't wait to see what's actually 'good', haha. I mean, I personally wouldn't call them horrid. They're simplistic, yes, but in no way 'bad'.
And, now that I'm on my PC and can see your works in their full glory, I do realize that what you're saying is quite true. The lighting is, in fact, off in quite a lot of your works. The first thing that came to my mind when I was going through your works was that you seem to have multiple light sources in some of your works. Works like the prototype tag, for example. And then there are those where lighting is just off - like, it just doesn't look as if you've incorporated a light source at all. But its understandable considering the fact that you're working on a laptop with shoddy lighting. Hope it gets fixed soon. Update this gallery more often, btw. Wanna see more of your stuff.