tapered brush strokes

Please help. I really would like to know how to create variable brush stokes in Freehand MX. I have tried using the calligraphic pen and that is awful and even creating a custom brush does not give neatly tapered lines. How do the graphic designers do it? Do they punch organic shapes, do they just trace really well or just use the pen tool really well OR do they have a set of brushes that I dont have? Even tracing an image is difficult as there are bound to be one or two nodes that are not smooth. Even the auto-trace tool is not neat. These are examples of vector images with smooth tapered lines:
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup/object/5394729_flower.php?id=5 394729

http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup/object/4652986_floral_design.p hp?id=4652986

How on earth are these created so neatly and perfectly? Are there more brushes one can download for Freehand because the library of brushes now is soooooo limited. What am I missing...please help...

Thank-you
Louise