Lisa- that was great advice!
I emailed the company and received a detailed, lengthy email from Alisha, one of the customer service reps. Long story short, one of the legs was not clicked all the way into a black support piece. I still need to adjust the platform but it's already working so much better. Like night and day.
She also suggested using one of those plastic office chair mats under your table if you are on carpet and placing a thick shelf liner under the machine. I'm on wood so that's not an issue but I am going to try the shelf liner.
I just couldn't understand all of the positive reviews before, knew something had to be wrong.
Thanks for all of your help/sympathy,
lots2do