I feel you @hawkman , my rate was absolute garbage until I stumbled upon @JohnnyPotseed 's seed sprouting method and then for the soak that H202 trick.
I have never and wont do the paper towel method but I am not against it. It’s a personal preference. I prepare my starting cups with 2/3rds of promix BX (my medium of choice), and then the top 1/3 with PURE earth worm castings. I use 16oz solocups with holes melted along by using an old soldering iron on all sides making them like “air-pots” but I call em “Speedpots” to smile as it’s also an early Simpson’s reference.
These get 4.5oz of filtered water (on the day i’m starting my seeds) from the top which saturates everything and takes some of the EWC goodness INTO the promixBX lower layers.
I scuff each seed 1 at a time, and also for about 20-30seconds, tossing them into my shot-glass and when all are done I’ll add my “seed starting solution” and watch them dance in the water and float to the top.
These get covered in a dark warm space at 24-25c and in usually less than 24hrs there’s a tap root showing. When this tap root is about 1-3mm I poke a hole in the middle of my speedcups medium with a metal chopstick and using an esspresso spoon I scoop out a seed with a little solution and “float” the taproot to the end of the spoon and drop it into the hole. It’s my “Seed planting via waterslide” technique. 
These cups get covered with a 4" pot, which keeps in a micro-climate but the holes have 2 purposes, with one being that the give the seedling a growing direction when they break the surface and the other is that it’s not soooo humid in there that I have damping off problems.
Since doing all the above the only time I’ve had a seed fail is because it was dead to begin with.
Once I have 4 of 4 seeds NOT pop in the solution, and STILL DIDN’T POP when in EWC for 7 days… I dug each up and found the seed to be perfectly fine so I cracked each in between my fingers carefully and then replanted them. One week later it was 4 outa 4 seedlings so this was a case where those casings were just BEEFY AS FUCK.
I’ve read of folks going at these type of seeds with razor blades to get them started!!!
For a full read up on JPS’s earth worm castings method:
