I can understand your frustrations. Regarding the water dripping, is there a removable
nozzle at the end of the spray head? i suspect there is a small piece of debris clogging the
nozzle or possibly the valve that turns the spray on/off. If you have that attached to a city water source you should have plenty of water flow.
Does the vacuum have a rubber seal where the top meets the bottom can? Shop vacs are pretty simple and even cheap ones will work pretty good as long as it is well sealed. All of the makeup air needs to be coming back to the canister from the hose. Any air leaks on any other part of the vacuum will reduce the suction at the hose. If there are even a couple of small "insignificant" air leaks the suction will be affected more than you'd expect.
Good luck