My experience has been close to yours. mm. They don't really do it for me. I do, however, have a lovely new vibrator that ain't half bad.
Although I've been brutally honest with my guy about it, he's explained that he likes to see me get off and he loves watching the act of penetration. The original idea was to shoot pics of him penetrating me, but that ain't all that easy.
He did use the dildo on me once while he was pleasuring me orally which wasn't bad at all ...
Other than that little combo number, the idea doesn't excite me at all. Don't ask me why I have two of them. And yes, we've done that, too. Didn't work for me. And I never use either one alone.