This was a major issue for me as well. Until i realised OT is not made for live unquantized petformance really.
The timing focus of the OT is really “step sequencer oriented”, and very low res at that (16 notes for 4 bars or 64 notes for a single bar sequence).
Of course thete is micro timing but that isnt live performance but a tweak after the fact. So it dont qualify for live performance.
The live recording does not know what “note off” is, the second most important element in music (right after note on;)
The unquantized live recording is pretty worthless as, like you say, it does not play back what you played. And also you can tell by the pad design that they were not made for finger drumming but rather for data entry. Get used to tne world of 16 or 32 notes. 
Its really not made for live playing of musical parts.
Thats would totally be MPC world. In MPC its all about live beat recording on top of all the quantization resolutions you want and limitless pattern lengths regardless of step resolution.
Its such a different beast.
I bought both devices. Each for his strentgths.