I am going to go the other way and say that a sump would help you big time.
IMHO you do not want to break the water surface at all as that will just add annoying bubbles to the water.
First you should have a good strong powerhead close enough to the surface that you can see some serious turbulance in the water. (Not high enough to draw in air though)
Follow that up with an overflow that will pull all of the surface oil/scum into the sump where it is mixed and can be skimmed, etc.
If I had to guess why your skimmer is not working I would think that the input pump might be too far down from the surface to get the crud on top. It should only be an inch or so from the surface. (Just low enough to not draw in any air.
As far as a new tank goes, that is hard. If you can get an inexpensive overflow, then you might be ok. You can always add the Remora to the sump for now. The only problem is redundancy. a drilled tank will have more than one outlet incase one gets plugged.
Good luck and keep us posted!
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