Fandog - Soils that support little to no perched water (water that won't drain from that soggy layer of soil at the bottom of the pot after a good watering) offer significantly facilitate your ability to offer your plants a root environment that allows the plant to grow to its potential. Soils that support significant amounts of perched water are always going to limit the plant's potential - it's unavoidable.

Since the volume of perched water a soil holds is closely correlated to the size of the particles that make up your soil, we can see that chunky soils that are comprised mainly of large particles and large air spaces, and contain few fine particles offer your plants the best opportunities to grow to their potential.

2 parts of screened pine bark
1 part of screened Turface or calcined DE
2 tsp garden lime/gallon of soil

would make an excellent soil. Here is what the pine bark should look like:
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After it's made, the soil would look something like this:
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except that where you see perlite, there would be Turface or DE in its place.

Trying to amend a soil primarily made of fine particles won't work. Your soil needs to be BASED on large particles, not on small particles. Even if you mixed an equal measure of perlite or other coarse material with peat or other water-retentive soil, the fine particles surround the larger particles, negating the effort insofar as aeration and drainage is concerned. Some materials, when added top soils, can reduce o/a water retention (like perlite), but unless perlite comprises >75% of the o/a soil mix, it is ineffectual at increasing drainage or aeration. To visualize this concept, think about how much aeration there is in a pint of BBs. Add a half pint of sand so the mix is 2 parts BBs and 1 part sand, and you've destroyed aeration and introduced a soggy layer of soil at the bottom of the jar (even if it had a hole in it). That's why you simply can't effectively amend soils comprised primarily of fine particles.

This is what I grow all my houseplants in.
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It makes growing super easy, and you don't need to worry about over-watering or the several issues that come as baggage when using water-retentive soils.

Let me know if you're interested in learning more about soils and container growing in general. You can make some significant steps forward in a short time if you'd like to invest a little time to gain an understanding of a few simple concepts.

Al