Seedling tray renovation

As posted on 12 Jan 2012, to my disappointment, only three out of the 35 seeds sprouted, including 1 tomato and two lettuce seeds. After 3 weeks of waiting, I decided the others somehow didn't like the environment, and should be removed for new seeds. The factors of bad gemination rate are to be investigated.
A few days before today, I removed half the seed raising mix, the trademark coir block planting mix by Brunnings, to a small pot for a sunflower seed, hoping that it would germinate without trouble since sunflower is a tough plant - and it did. Thank goodness I found some use for the mix which I suspected could be one factor contributing to bad germination.
Today, I sowed some more seeds in the emptied spaces, using the normal seed raising mix this time. Crops sowed include chive, Taiwanese cabbage, nasturtium and tomato.
At the same time, I moved the only tomato from the last sowing to a 10cm pot for it to develop further. The two lettuce seedlings look half dead with brown stems, so I didn't bother to save them. Hopefully the tomato is happier in with normal potting mix.
The second tray I dealt with today is the old ice cube tray. Result wasn't satisfactory either. Again lettuce won the price for germinating. The other one sprouting is a marigold. I moved the lettuces out to pots today for further growth.
Ideally I would like to let them grow to size suitable for transplanting straight away, but in an ice tray without draining holes, it is difficult to monitor the amount of water. Plus I ran out of seed raising mix at the time of planting these seeds, I used potting mix, which dries out very fast. Moving them to a normal pot will probably be better for them.