I use HSO because I’m too much of a dabbler to spend big bucks on East/West or Vienna. So I have to work with what I 've got.
I’m not in love with the HSO bassoons either, but I found that I could improve them using the quick controls, especially body and air. When there are 2 bassoons, I’ll give the top line a bit more air, and the bottom line a bit more body. There’s a subtle timbre shift on each bassoon.
In general, I avoid parts that are in sync down to the millisecond, as it can sound like a car alarm or smoke alarm. I nudge the notes a tiny amount before or behind the beat. But a new problem appears: Doing this with 2 oboes having identical sounds may lead to phase cancellation artifacts. Whether that theory is correct or not, something sounds off when they play together, and it isn’t around when they play separately. The timbre shifting trick helps with this new problem. (It worked with bassoons. The problem was more severe with oboes, where I used the same trick, but also introduced 1 or 2 cent tuning errors to help keep them from interfering.)
The attack quick control also has potential. I’ve noticed that all the winds in HSO seem to have the same default settings for quick controls, and I don’t know why.