Sorry to hear you've had a bad experience.
I would agree entirely with your point in relation to going with your gut feeing.
My experience and my understanding is that most people pass first time, and I would be surprised if the pool contained anything close to 9000 questions!
Experienced people can sometimes struggle with exams as you learn what you need to know to do your job, which unfortunately can be different from the level of detail that the exam can test you on.
I'm not sure personally what else to suggest to you, other than get hands-on with the things you haven't done before and to focus on the objectives in the exam blueprint...
Best of luck.