I've just had immense difficulty finding the Mangal Kashmiri. 2 packs arrived from Melbourne yesterday.  How did you find their Balti Masala?

It isn't bad for the cost but it is a very basic paperback on rough paper. $7.50 would only just buy 2 small coffees. The recipes are just a collection of restaurant fair but they seem ok. If I send you the Masala and gravy recipes you could pretty much wing it from there I'd say. The actual dishes are standard Balti house dishes so nothing miraculous will happen. If you can buy it for next to nothing, it is worth owning.

I PM'd you a link to a couple of scanned pages so you can decide if you want it or not?

LC, the question of brand is more rhetorical and one you would ask yourself when the result was not as hoped. Rajah brand is one we don't get here but it is probably fairly standard there. It does contain one thing I've not seen in any other. Pimento.

Garam Masala is a pungent and potent mix by design. If you are sensitive to it, then reduce or omit it as needs be. Or perhaps a different blend will help.

A very good question. There are many things to consider here LC, and base gravy isn't where I'd normally use GM, but some do, and I have done.
Garam Masala is just another Mixed Powder.
A mixed powder can be anything it needs to be. A simple 4 spice blend of T,C,C and C or 24 spices in a version of Kitchen King. Or anything in between. Abdul's 8 or my derived 5432211. I cook my breakfast scrambled eggs with just Turmeric and Kashmiri Chilli, but I could use MDH Kitchen King. I probably will now just to see what it's like. 

My first question would be, which Garam Masala did or do you use? Is it just the bog standard GM?
My second question is, which spice or spices from that GM do you think is, or are, the problem, and for which dish? Cloves would be the stand out for me, or possibly cardamom. Maybe black pepper.

I make my own blends of GM, as well as buying generic, and have 6 very different Garam Masala blends in my kit just at the moment. Even the bought stuff is a mixture of this and that, old and new, now.  Generally I use them as a garnish / enhancer added late in or after cooking, but if I examine a recipe and see that multiple individual spices can easily be replaced by an equivalent portion of one of the GMs, I'll substitute it out simply for ease and efficiency.

As for inclusion in a Base Gravy, horses for courses. For a very neutral base, then probably not.  In a gravy for a full flavouried dish, then certainly possible.  In my analytical study, I can see the common GM spices show up regularly so it can sometimes be used to reach the same ends. I have also started to use different base gravies for different dishes, which probably isn't true BIR, but it minimises the similarity of all dishes on the table at one time.

From day one here on this forum, Mixed Powder formulae, that include another mixed powder (of unspecified type :ie, curry powder) as an ingredient has frustrated the hing out of me.  I've sort of finally come to realise that it doesn't matter too much at all.

"one in Lostwithiel and one in Bodmin." 
Well there's your problem Phil !!!  Who makes up the names of these places you go?  Out here in the colonies we have the salubrious townships of Woy Woy, (the home of Spike Milligan (and his mum) and there is a bridge named in his honour) and the close suburbs of Ettalong and Umina.  Honestly Phil, how can you expect to buy a proper BIR in Lostwithiel or Bodmin?

I hope to have a horrible bridge named after me one day.

I'm glad you were able to salvage a feed from your dissapointing presentations.  Don't go back without your own utensils next time. hey?

I mowed his mum's lawn (in Orange Grove) one time and she offered us lemonade when a beer would have been much better.