Sounds like you've never had a good American rye. Try Rittenhouse 100 proof. Nice stuff, very reasonable price for the quality. To my palate it puts Crown to shame - I just generally don't like blended whiskys of any kind.
I actually don't mind Canadian Club at all. Before the current American rye renaissance, many historical bartenders recommended CC as a readily-available kinda-close subtitute.
My general purpose American whisky (I defer to the Scottish on the spelling, sine they invented the stuff) is Old Overholt. It's also a rye but it's very well balanced and not overly rye-heavy. Plays nice in cocktails, and good enough to sip on. (And it's cheap - like $10 a bottle cheap. Like dangerously cheap.)

