If you want good documentation - go to TI or one of the other big players and prepare to pay for it. But they aren't that interested in helping you hack away - in their mind volume sales comes from established manufacturers like Sony, Samsung etc. The hobby market is totally irrelevant to their business model, they don't see any cross-over sadly.
I think you might have been very unlucky to get a bad batch of chips, but don't give up yet! It might be worth trying a dev board such as the nodemcu dev kit - or the limpkin one - at least these will have some quality control and you can contact the makers if you have problems.
If you or anyone else can offer ESP modules with quality control then how much premium would that attract? Perhaps some enterprising readers can start a little business buying and testing and then standing by these things?