Your experience covers your case and your wife's in one state. In an ideal world, a worker would suffer a minimal injury that the employer did not dispute the employer was solely responsible for, the employee would suffer very little permanent disability and that amount would be uncontested,medical bills would be paid immediately and without question, the amount of money paid during temporary disability and to compensate for the permanent disability would be in the amount prescribed by law and timely paid, if future medicals were at issue the employer would make adequate provision without quibbling, when the employee needed further medical care after returning to work as a result of the old injury this would be taken care of without question and the employee would be paid salary continuance while this episode was being tended to, and the employee would return to his old job when the time was right without loss of seniority and with no hint or possibility of retaliatory action or discrimination. Further the majority of the individuals who write to this forum have already demonstrated that they have a problem or they would not be writing here. However, that is where the commonality ends. Over the years the law governing compensable injuries, rehabilitation, third party litigation etc. etc. has changed radically from state to state.
Some states have different tiers of laws depending upon when the injury occurred.
In short, my guess is that you had a dream case or your attorney had already taken all of the steps necessary to protect your substantive rights before you fired him. I would add one other important point that we agree on. I have seen substantive rights go by the wayside because a nonrepresented employee made an irremediable procedural error. I will continue to recommend legal counsel for those individuals who are industrially injured. I could not, in all good conscience, based in my own experiences, do otherwise.