In my homemade vacuum bagging attempt (a shopvac and tubing), I sucked a LOT of resin out of my piece. So it was light as @#$% and strong, but didn’t leave any resin on the mould side for me to buff and polish smooth. It had the texture of the CF.
Does this sound right? If it is right, then I’ll have to apply more resin to the piece to make it shiny — and that seems to counter the effects of bagging it…
What type of resin were you using? How much vacuum were you able to pull with a shop vac?
Old vinylester. I know - I should’ve thrown it out - it’s prolly expired, but I was just doing a “test piece.” It took hours for the resin to even start curing.
I don’t have a guage to measure the pressure, but the sides of the shopvac collapsed under the pressure. 
I would guess that the shopvac pulls 15" max if that. The viscosity of the VE should have been pretty low and you should have been able to get full saturation. When you say that it sucked all the resin out, it that in the vacuum tube or the breather cloth? If you are comparing a vacuum bagged piece to a wet layup, the wet layup will be much more resin rich. Afterall, the purpose is to remove all the excess resin. Also, as a side note, VE is not the best for leaving a finished surface in my experience.
Vinyl ester generally has a very low viscosty. Often times it will leave a textured, dry look on the surface. Does the surface have actual dry spots, or just imprints from the fabric?
I’m surprised you were able to pull much vacuum with a Shop Vac. Can’t imagine it running the whole time until the resin gels.