The passwords stored in MySQL are encrypted so I'm not sure what you mean by re-created passwords.
You say you also tried using /wp-login.php. What other method were you using?
As for the misspelling, there are duplicate functions with the older one being deprecated because of the misspelling. In this case, it would have made no difference correcting the spelling because that function shouldn't be used since ver. 2.
The 95% of the time it doesn't work, does it just not accept the password or is something else going on?
Have you tried creating a new admin just to see if that works better?
Can you explain more about the password email and wrong key? Do you get a 404 error when following the link or what makes it wrong?