I need overproofing help

Hello folks,

New user here and can I say that I have been reading these forums day in and day out for a while now.  The wealth of knowledge is really impressive!

OK. 

I am trying to bake my bread (just regular old sandwich bread, white or whole wheat-combo) at home.  I bought a bread machine (cheap one, Oster, not terribly impressive but also NOT the source of my problems.)  I have digital scales, new ingredients and know how to measure correctly.  My yeast is kept in the refrigerator and is good.  I follow recipes to the letter and am aware of how to decrease sugar and increase salt etc.

EVERY SINGLE loaf I have produced so far has been a dud.  Through research and vast trial and error, I have identified that my problem is MASSIVE overproofing every single time (with the exception of a small, dense but OK-tasting whole wheat loaf I made on a one-hour "Expressbake" cycle last week.)  Every single loaf I make (I have tried several different recipes from just pure white to a grain mix to oatmeal bread etc. etc.) turns out bad.  I mean - some are bricks, some are just lumpy on top.....ALL have the same unappealing aroma, taste and appearance.  The bread is pale (except for the sides which get browned a little by the machine), thick, and almost gummy or even damp-seeming.  While it IS possible to eat it, it is mostly unimpressive and - to me - doesn't even taste like baked bread.  It's sort of unpleasant and the flavor can range from sour to salty to just bland and floury.

Last night was my first experiment with overproofing.  I watched the dough religiously.  Within the first proofing period (the cycle I use has three), my dough had bulked out more than double the size and was an irregular mass of soft dough in the pan.  After knock-down, I set the timer for 18 minutes during its second proof (bread machine cycles proof three times).  Even after only 18 minutes (the dough had more than one hour total of proofing to go), the dough had again ballooned and a poke test left a permanent finger dent in it.  I set it to bake immediately.  The resulting loaf was again unimpressive.  It did not collapse this time (I suspect because I caught it and did not even LET it go on to the shaping and then third rise), but it did not have any height or oven-spring, and was the same unappealing pale loaf.  No visible signs of oven spring, no nice baked-looking scores in the top, nothing.  Like - there's nothing going on there.

I live in Arkansas.  Here, in the summers (which last until Thanksgiving), the humidity is always between 85% and 100% and the temperatures are extremely high.  I have heard of people actually using ice water in tropical climates to start their dough off to avoid over-proofing.  Do you think that is what I should do?  I have tried cutting down on yeast some - but my results always either still overproof, or have little to not yeast action at all and just end up bricks.  There seems to be such a fine line between the two that I cannot avoid it.  I have juggled the salt a little here and there but again - no solutions have presented themselves and I just end up with a salty loaf. 

My machine also has two shorter cycle options that I could try if you think it would help.  One cycle is about 1hr 45mins long (labeled RAPID) and the other is about 2hr 30mins (labeled QUICK) long - but, unfortunately, the manual (which sucks) doesn't tell me what takes place during those cycles nor does it describe under what circumstances I shoudl use these options.

Thoughts?  I am sick of this.