I would agree, bigger tanks would most likely be better. More swimming room, and more stable parameters.
Personally, I have had decent growth in my fish. It hasn't been absolutely spectacular, but what I do...
I feed very, very small amounts 3-4 times a day, instead of the slightly larger amount once or twice a day. Most of those will be TetraFin flakes, though one meal a day I usually give tiny bits of apple, or bloodworms, or soaked krill pellets. Something to mix it up a bit, and they love that last meal of the day!
I perform frequent partial water changes, around 20% every other day, or every three days... If I'm not sure if I'm overdoing it or not, I run a quick test strip, but generally, my fish have seemed happy with it. I especially focus on grabbing up anything I can stir up from the gravel, and some days, that can be a surprising amount.
They're tank fish, but I give them indirect sunlight for as long as the sun's up, and have a plantlamp I bought to keep a ti plant alive, that is also shining indirectly towards them, for an almost sunny look. The temperature doesn't get too bad, though, and I keep an eye on it.
I've placed the air bubble wand and the filter in such a way that half of the tank has a gentle circular current, and the fish really seem to enjoy swimming into the wall of bubbles every so often.. My best guess is that it gives them some exercise, and of course I read somewhere that breeders who care only about size used a constant-flow racetrack sort of setup. I prefer to leave part of the tank out of the way and hidden by plants, so they can rest and recuperate from a busy, hungry day.

And of course I keep my tank out of the reach of hungry cats, curious do-gooders, and stray drafts.
It may not work for everyone, and I'm still working on optimizing my system. But so far, so good. Knock on wood and all that...