I so totally agree! "Jesus died once for ALL". Which to me means that even though Jesus knew ALL would not choose Him, He was willing to die for them anyway.
The key is that there must be a response to Christ's action in order for it to apply to the responder. Christ's work on the cross was sufficient to save every person who has ever lived, is living, or will live. However, each individual must receive it as personally applicable and produce fruit in keeping with that acceptance for it to be effective for them.
That is the fine balance between free will and predestination. From God's side, He foreknew those whom He had chosen. From our side, we freely choose or reject, as we will. The only problem I see with the Calvinist view is that it stresses God's point of view about the subject to the exclusion of the balancing aspect of free will. Stressing Predestination reduces man to little more than a mindless automaton. Stressing free will reduces God to a reactive, pleading wimp. Neither view is accurate. God desires interaction with us, on His terms to be sure, but not to the exclusion of our own individuality and uniqueness. We have all like sheep gone astray, but those of us who have believed have returned to the shepherd of our souls. To refer to some as "elect" even though a biblical term, can engender a form of pride and an attitude of being "better" than those poor souls who haven't believed. I don't think that's what God had in mind.