This is The Monolith , the series in which I convince you to build and play more monocolored decks in EDH, and here are 7 cards that will find a home in any mono-red Commander deck
Titania, Protector of Argoth is another good creature to have out ahead of time
Loxi: Whew, this has the potential to ramp you a lot if you play enough creatures to make sure you can attack reliably with this
You touch on it in your last point, that there are different cases of feel-bad: board wipes, lockdown/hand hate and random luck/cascades are all different causes, but the biggest common factor in feeling bad is that you lose
With a few major exceptions, like not preventing activated abilities, Voice of Victory is very much like the staple Grand Abolisher