Oven cleaning

Never truly had to do this before. May I say for the record that it is a major pain in the patootie?

1. Attempt self clean cycle. Minimal to no effect.
2. Repeat attempt (in the hopes that "minimal" was progress). No effect at all.
3. Buy oven cleaner and apply according to instructions. Gunk in oven is loosened but now the entire oven is gray-white and I can't get that off no matter how much rinsing and scrubbing I do.

At this point I would be happy to have the oven back in the state it was in before I started. Why do I try, people? Somebody, somewhere, tell me the answer to this fundamental question?

So now I'm doing something that I know is a not so good idea, but I'm out of options:

4. Repeat self clean cycle. Maybe it will burn some of this stuff off. (From the fumes, I can tell it's doing SOMETHING.)

Wish me luck.