Nice burner!! It would seem that more/bigger air holes would do better.

We used to put holes around the bottom using a juice can opener - the thing on the other end of some bottle openers that were used to punch holes in Hi-C juice cans. Does such a thing even exist anymore??

We would put a series of triangular holes around the entire bottom and top.

Many many moons ago, when a young Boy Scout, 100% of our cooking was done on charcoal grills made out of steel buckets the same size as those orange buckets you buy from Home Depot. The steel buckets came from a local candy factory - doubt you can even get them anymore.

Its hard to recall the details, but there were holes around the bottom, a grid of heavy wire w/ mesh above that (that's where the coals went, and then a wider grid of heavy wire above that (the pots/pans went on that).