STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

I have posted here before about my hair travails.  Here is my latest.  I really need some advice. 

When I turned 33 or 34 years old, I decided that I wanted to go blonde after having worn my natural medium brown hair all my life.  I started slowly by getting a few highlights here and there.  Then, I went blonde overboard.  I went really platinum.  I got tired of all the upkeep so I got it lowlighted.  Then over the next 3 or 4 years I would go lighter, then darker, lighter, then darker....you get the idea.  Up until a year ago, I was in a reddish brown phase that I really liked.  It was something I could handle doing myself, so I did my own color and just went to get my split ends trimmed ever so often.  Then I turned 40, and I think I sort of went through a midlife crisis.  I decided that I had to be blonde again so I went to a "professional"---something I swore I would never do again.  I started out with some highlights, but then I went blonde overboard again.    It had no weird tones in it but was just a nice light blonde.  I really liked it, but I started hating the expensive upkeep and the dark roots more.  I had been giving it alot of thought and decided to go back to a light brown with very fine highlighting.  I really think it looks better on my skin tone.   In the past when I have gone back from blonde to brown with other hair colorists, it has not been a problem.
   Well, when I walked into the salon this past Tuesday morning and showed my colorist some pics to give her an idea of what I wanted, I had no idea what a traumatic event this would turn out to be.  In the past when I have gone from blonde to brown, my previous hair colorists have just added dark streaks to it with a demi-permament color and used a toner to blend everything in.  It has been no big issue. 
    Well, she pulled out the hair swatches and started showing me different ones.  We picked one that looked like the hair color in the picture. Now I know that you can't just put color on your hair and think it will look like the swatch.  When you have bleached hair, you have to fill in missing colors.   I started to ask her if she was going to fill in the missing colors in my hair first, but then her supervisor told her that what she was using would be fine since it had all the missing colors.  She put it on my regrowth and then pulled it through the rest of my hair.  It turned my roots this awful red color and did not darken my hair at all.  She was totally stumped as to why my blonde hair did not go darker.  The one thing you don't want to hear come out of you colorists mouth is "Hmmmm."   So she ran the color through again and it did not go darker.  Then she decided to put bleach on my roots to get out the red.  She then put a shade darker on my hair than she had used before and it finally went a little darker, but it is not was dark as I wanted.  I still had this slight weird redness to my roots and my hair was this muddy water dark blonde.  I will credit her for trying to fix it before I left, but I am not happy with it.  As I was leaving, 6 HOURS LATER,  she said,  "it looks good  for what it has been through."    Amazingly, my hair ends did not fry at all.  Howeever, I have breakage at the roots.  I have to spray my hair at the roots to keep little hairs from sticking up all over.   I tried to stay calm after I got home--after all it is just hair.    I kept trying to tell myself that it did not look as bad as I knew it really did.  The next morning, I decided something had to be done.  I called a local hair colorist that I have used a couple of times before and was honest with her about my whole situation.  I have used her in the past, but the main reason I quit is because she does not foil--she is an old timey hair stylist who uses the cap.  But she does have alot of experience going for her.    While I was on the phone with her, I had a meltdown and just burst into tears.  I don't know where it came from, but I could not quit crying.  She told me she had an opening and to come on in.  Well, that wonderful lady performed a miracle on my hair.  It is now a nice medium brown color with some highlights.  I am not totally happy with it because the highlights have too cool a tone for my taste, but at this point I am just thankful that my hair is still long except for some breakage at the roots.  She told me that my hair would fade lighter because she had used a demi-permament color to reduce additional damage to my hair  and that we might have to apply the color again in about a month.    She has ordered me some color deposit shampoo that should keep it from fading so fast.

  I am just so upset and discouraged.  I did not go to that hairstylist on Tuesday to get my hair fried off my head.  I just wanted some simple lowlights.   I can live with my hair color now that it is fixed, but it is the breakage and the unhealthiness of it that saddens me.  I am so thankful for this experienced hair-stylist that was so kind to fix my hair. 

My question:  At this point, do you think I should just leave it alone for awhile? Yes, I am asking that with a straight face.   I would really like to not do anything to it for about a year to just give it time to rest.  However, I know when the color starts to fade, she will need to add more color.  I just want my healthy hair back, but I know that is a long time away. 

Do any of you have any hair products to recommend that makes dull hair look shiny or will at least give the appearance of healthy hair? 

Thanks for listening to me.