Sounds like you have had a busy few days.
Generally I manually bleed brakes but if a persistent tricky one, then where possible I prefer a pressure bleed as opposed to a vacuum type, the reason being if system weak, particularly master cylinders, then a vacuum will suck in the brake seals and introduce air into the system where a pressure will not.
Re the brake travel once no air in the system, as I mentioned earlier @ #9, that design of us self adjusters relies on friction to keep the shoes correctly adjusted and unless good genuine replacement shoes and adjusters what happens is the weak adjusters slide back out of adjustment with the strength of the brake shoe return springs.
The correct thing is good quality parts, but the cheat is to slightly weaken the top return spring so it doesn't overcome the self adjusters, then as mentioned earlier, you easy the shoes outwards to a point where you can just slide the brake drums on, then give the drum a light tap with a copper mallet to square the shoes up and the drum will spin freely whilst still at max. adjustment position. This of course is with handbrake cable adjustment backed off beforehand, if this is done front and rear then the brake pedal should be as good as it can be.
Regarding your other issue regarding brake bias as in pulling to one side on braking, I think you will find it is nothing to do with steering geometry.
When I started in the motor trade many cars still had drum brakes front and rear, disc brakes unless major fault tend to be much better in stopping in a straight line.
The trick is on drum brakes to file a lead on the leading brake shoes (make sure it is only the leading shoes) the leading shoe on a single double acting wheel cylinder is where you look at the direction of rotation of that wheel you will see usually the front shoe if cylinder at top of back plate, is the leading shoe. What I was taught at MV college in 1969 is that the leading shoe gives a "self servo action" which increases braking effort by trying to grab on more than a trailing shoe. This is good for improving brake power, but if shoes have a tendency to grab on, the answer is to file away a slight lead on that leading edge to reduce the "self servo action" often all you need is a rough file to make a slope from where the shoe friction material starts to contact the brake drum, it doesn't need to be much 10-15mm, just enough so it contacts the drum at a less sharp angle.
Another point to check when fitting brake shoes is usually the leading shoe has less brake material nearest to the wheel cylinder than the trailing shoe.
If you are not sure what I mean ask and I will try and draw a picture, but my artistic skills are very limited.
Note you must do the same on both sides of front brakes.
It does work, my test is 30mph on an empty flat road, hands off steering wheel and brake hard without skidding to a stop in a straight line!
Of course , at your own risk if you try this at home folks.
