I can commisserate. DS just potty trained at about 4 years 1 month. He was oblivious to candy rewards, stickers, etc. Setting a timer to let him know when to try was resulting in power struggles. We switched him to pull-ups at the beginning of the summer and the change somehow encouraged him to start pooping on the toilet, but he'd still pee in the pull-up with no concern. I was just happy not to be changing poopy diapers, so I took this as a win and let it go. He started school two mornings a week in the Fall and he would use the potty there and came home with a dry pull-up, but still would not use the potty to pee at home. So, we knew he could do it if he wanted to.
Finally, earlier this Fall we started checking out ipads/iphones at best buy in anticipation of buying one. DS really liked playing with them. So we told him we were planning to get one, but ipads are only for big boys and big boys wear underwear and use the potty. Guess what? Fast-forward a couple of weeks later after having had this discussion a couple of times and DS decided it was time to wear underwear and use the potty. I think we've had one accident since then (and we do allow DS to play with the new Ipad). We would never have used a "bribe" like this if we weren't sure that he really was perfectly capable of being trained (and if we weren't already planning on making a big purchase like this), but it worked like a charm!
So try not to let the other moms get to you and good luck finding something that works for you! And I agree with many other posters who said that training late can sometimes be easier than early, in terms of dealing with accidents.