In my experience, CPM ads pay much less than CPC. I think that your issue with AdSense was poor optimization / ad placement.

I have a client who had very low CPC with high traffic website, and was making well over $10000 per month with AdSense.

Before we optimized his site, with same traffic he was making less than $3000 (which is still pretty good).

There may be some good CPM networks out there, but overall, CPC should yield much higher income.

What was your RPM (revenue per 1000 impressions) with AdSense?