What am I doing wrong in MGS3: Subsistence

[AtmaWeapon]

Lately I've caught an MGS bug, so I bought a boxed set with MGS, MGS2: Substance, and MGS3: Subsistence. I had just played through MGS: The Twin Snakes, so MGS2 was fairly easy. However, I'm having a lot of trouble with MGS3.

Mostly my problem is every "room" goes like this:

I'll spend the first few minutes in an area looking around with the scope and learning where the guards are and predicting where they'll be at a given time. Then I spend the next 10 minutes waiting for the guard to creep to some position that lets me sneak by. Sometimes there's a guard that's just completely in the way, so I have to take him down. This is where things go wrong. I'm at the beginning of the real mission, so all I've got is a knife and good looks. So I figure out where the soldiers patrol, pick a grassy spot near the route, and wait for the guard to get close again. When he passes by, I pop up and head in for the kill with CQC. One of five things happens at this point:
I get impatient; running up to the guy gives me away. I try creeping towards the guy and end up in his field of vision. I try slowly walking towards the guy, but despite the fact that the guards move like they're 90 years old, Snake moves even slower and I can't catch up. He turns around and caps me 10 minutes later, after he's moved 8 inches and I've moved 3. I get within CQC range, then discover I forgot to equip a weapon as I punch the guard in the back of the head. I get within CQC range, have the right weapon equipped, then push the button. Mysteriously Snake decides to punch instead.

It's getting kind of infuriating that when I manage to pull everything off, pressing the button produces actions completely opposite to what I want. Everything moves so slow in the game and the consequences of getting seen are so ridiculous that I'm getting really frustrated. Some of those things are habits I can break (like forgetting the weapon or running), but the fact that Snake moves slower than the guards when sneaking with the d-pad and this mysterious lack of getting CQC when I smash on the circle button is really getting old.

Is there some fundamental gameplay mechanic that I'm ignorant of?

Also, do I ever get to a point where the gameplay doesn't consist of taking three steps then watching a 10-minute cutscene? I played for an hour and a half last night and spent 10 minutes in control of Snake :/

[Zank_Tripper]

The strategy that works for me the best is just to shoot everyone in the head with the tranquilizer pistol. Even if you miss by a little, the enemy still goes down in a couple seconds. The silencer also doesn't give your position away.

If you want to do CQC, though, I would recommend grabbing the person and then cutting their throat or choking them. That way they can't raise the alarm while you're fighting them.

[SSJ3500]

If I can't sneak past them in one or two tries, I usually just kill everyone... It works.

You just have to find the one that ventures out too far alone into an area with a lot of cover, take him out, then use the path he usually covers to sneak over to another guard. There are usually some blind spots you just run through if you can find them.

[MottZilla]

You heard them, get GameShark and get a big gun and just play through it rambo style. :p

[MasterSwordUltima]

You can do CQC without a weapon equipped. You can do CQC with the Knife, any HANDGUN [edit: actually I don't think you can with the single action army], the fake cigerettes, the handkerchief, or with no weapon equipped. You can not use CQC if you're wearing the tux, for whatever reason.

CQC is only meant to be used if you're within close quarters, hence "Close Quarters Combat". The staple of the Metal Gear series is stealth. Did the collector's edition come with the instruction book for Substance? One of the first pages in it explains this thoroughly. [Or did Substance have the instructional manga? It was either MGS2 or Substance, anyway].

So basically, tranq guards that you can't seem to get past. Also, constantly change your camo, especially if this is your first time through. And I mean every single time you move from grass to dirt to a tree to a building to whatever. Also, crawling works WONDERS. If you combine crawling and camo, you can [in some places] crawl right under guards and they won't suspect a thing. Just make sure to use the D-pad to crawl extremely slow, that way your camo index doesn't go up on you.

All MGS games are loaded with story. The begining of MGS3 is really drawn out, but since you're actually on Operation Snake Eater now, there is a lot more open space between cutscenes. [But if you think thats long, wait until the ending of MGS4].

To sum things up, change camo, crawl, and tranq.