I've read through the responses, and decided to share a bit of "help".
I made this recipe a few times and was having issues with the dough not doing a whole lot of rising, and producing rather small and dense loaves. I tried using this on a regular cookie sheet, with a loaf pan, different sizes, letting it have more rising time, less proofing time, more kneading, less kneading, etc. It was getting frustrating to say the least, as I wanted to share it with my in-laws and was too embarrassed to do so. I still ate it, and it's delicious, it just wasn't the right texture/crumb etc...
Then I recalled my grandmother's way of baking sourdough bread. She always put the sugar in with the the starter and first few cups of flour and the salt in the second second "flouring". Her reasoning back then was: "You'll always catch more flies with honey than with salt". I never understood what she meant by that when it came to bread making. Social graces yeah I understood, but, with bread? So, I tried putting the sugar in with the starter and first bit of flour, and voila! It works really well, IMHO.
Hope this helps those who say they "tried it all". Never give up, there's always a way to make your starter earn it's keep in your pantry. :)
January 17, 2014 at 7:13pm