Vulcans at the core have more intense emotions than humans. That's why they work so hard to suppress emotions. We can function with meditation but they can't. We don't exactly know what would happen to a Vulcan crying over a dead loved one but they would be more overwhelmed than a human. It doesn't make them any less alien. I think Kolinhar is something very few Vulcans can achieve.
At the core, yes. But they mostly get rid of these emotions. I think Kolinhar is common, kind of a right of passage. Marking you as a responsible adult.
But I don't think it is only us who disagree on this, I think different writers over the years have interpreted the situation differently. Spock almost always seemed calm and he has some trouble understanding emotions. It really didn't seem like he was constantly struggling with intense feelings. When they planned Phase II, the character of Spock was to be replaced with Xon. The idea was that as a full Vulcan Xon really had not much understanding of emotions, but desperately wanted to understand them in order to get better along with his human ship mates (and thus be good at his job. It's all logical.) Much of the character concept was later used in the form of Data. So at least at that point Roddenberry's idea was that Vulcans really didn't have human-like emotions.
Tuvok seems to fit 'controlling emotions' idea better. I know he's a fan favourite, but I never really liked him that much (granted, to this day I have seen only a fraction of VOY episodes, as I didn't really like the show.) Instead of being calm, he often seemed to be mildly annoyed.
As for Enterprise (somehow, I watched the entire series) handling of Vulcans was a mess. I really didn't like them. T'pol was actually okay, as she seemed mostly calm. But overall the Vulcan in that show didn't seem like the same species as Spock.
Anyway. It is really not being right or wrong interpretation, it is more about my preferred depiction of Vulcans. It is perfectly possible that by now most writers disagree with me on this as well.
It's interesting the myth that Vulcans only have sex every 7 years gets passed around both in and out of universe. T'Pol said that in Fallen Hero but it's one of those BS things she says about Vulcans (like that they don't worry, etc).
I don't think it's BS. Vulcans don't lie, remember?
