I can understand your frustration with the apple pies. My problem was I like APPLE pie - not pie crust with some apples in it. My pies cook down to at least 3 inches thick. My DD would make a pie and it would turn out great, mine had juice in them even though I was using pie apples like the Pippen and Granny Smith apples. Finally discovered I needed to add more flour for the number of apples I used. And instead of adding regular sugar I did half white and half brown sugar. Also I have to cook mine a lot longer. I do an apple crisp topping too. It has flour and oatmeal so that helps my pies.
Since my mom had a problem making cherry pies from scratch I just figured apple pies were my problem child. I grew up with 2 pie cherry trees in the yard and no matter what my mom did with them the sugar would separate and if it were a pie there was a layer of sugar on the bottom crust. She tried so many different ways, she finally gave up. The funny thing though was her cherry jam - after we pitted so many cherries and she cooked up the jam, it didn't set. But it made a wonderful syrup - so we used it on pancakes and ice cream. It was great for that. She never tried it again, she thought if that was the intention something else would happen. (We blamed all the cherry failure on the person that had died in the house years before.)
My SIL does make an apple bread - much like banana bread with lots of apples in it. Everyone seems to like it a lot, but she puts nutmeg in it, which ruins it for me. She brings it every for every holiday.