Kneading help needed

The past few times I've made bread (BBA sourdough, deli rye, and KA English muffins) I've had something strange happening with my dough. I hope someone can help me figure out what's going on. In the past I'd let the dough knead in the Kitchenaid Pro mixer until it looked right (smooth, you know "the look"). The past few times, however, I've maching kneaded for a brief time (3-4 minutes) and then hand-kneaded. I was hoping to get a better feel for the dough. In addition, BBA has machine knead times listed, so I tried to follow those. When I begin to hand-knead, I find that the dough tears on the surface...lots and lots of small round tears. After reading posts from this site, I came to the conclusion that the gluten needed more development, so I kneaded more. More tearing. I finally gave up on the bread loaves, let them rise, and found that they had little to no oven spring when baked. Today, faced with the same dough issues for the English muffins, I gave up and put the dough back in the mixer until it looked right. Now the dough is smooth, passes the windowpane test, etc. so I think I was on the right track...the dough needed more kneading. Does this make sense? Why isn't it working when I knead by hand?

Ria