I’m sort of a next-generation user: I don’t know CSS or much html beyond <P> </P>. I am having similar but rather random paragraph problems using the wysiwyg editor ( which is all I want to use!).
When writing a post within wordpress, sometimes — but not consistently — I get BR instead of P tags. I have to go in and change the HTML, and sometimes it doesn’t stick.
I am not about to mess with my template code.
Also, sometimes I prefer to write in a text editor. I can’t figute out how to consistently make paragraphs when pasting into wordpress from Word docs saved as rich text or plain text, nor from wordpad. Sometimes I get double line breaks between grafs, other times I get quadruple breaks.
I see several similar unresolved questions on this forum. Maybe this is a wordpress bug that people have to live with?