Getting poked out as Bane is pretty common indeed. His D1 is a low but comes out at 11 frames and is his fastest normal. Because of this, Bane sometimes has trouble counter poking or punishing some moves. I find Supermans F23xxDB2 difficult to pressure out of (even though it's -1) since you basically have to commit to some sort of armoured special if you think he's going to press a button.
As for opening people up, Bane can certainly do that quite well if you plan your attack and mix correctly. It is very much about conditioning your opponent to respect your knockdown options and forcing them to understand that wakeup attacks, backdashes and neutral jumps can all be stuffed by Bane with the correct attack.
The obviously answer to wakeup attacks is armoured special (Usually command grab), but some wakeup do get around this or break armour. For example, Superman Rising Grab often gets around a meaty command grab, but is super punishable. Darkseid has his BF3 MB which hits twice and can break armour. I haven't fought a lot of Darkseids so I can't give a solid answer against this but I don't believe it breaks armour if you use a faster armoured special (Such as DB2)). Most backdashes can be caught with a meaty command grab also, but some like Catwoman and Harley have excellent backdashes and can be difficult to catch (You can catch Harley's but the timing is tough, unsure about Catwomans) but if you find it hard F2 is a good normal on a read but is unsafe and doesn't combo.
Once you think you have your opponent conditioned into guessing between what their wakeup options are, is where Bane truly becomes scary. For example, if you've used command grab as your meaty for the last few knockdowns, try going for B23 instead. B23 is a full launching string (BnB is B23 B23 123 Air Grab) and gets Bane a LOT of meter less damage, it's like 400 something without venom so think of that. I am beginning to use command grab and armour more as a conditioning tool to allow for Bane to get his big boy damage from his normals. I'm sure you've seen the videos of Biohazard going for a bounce cancel and getting something like 800 on some dude with level 3.
Mixup options often including armoured command grab or a tick throw. Bane has a lot of normals he can tick throw from, which include D1, D2, B1, B11, B23, 112D, F2D and some more that I forget. D2 is usually my go to since it also catches neutral jumps and is pretty good when used as a meaty. F2D is also an excellent anti air and catches some backdashes really well, plus it's armoured in level 3. 112D and B23 are excellent due to the damage Bane can get off them for 2 bars (Bounce cancels).
Projectiles are definitely Bane's bane. He has an excellent forward dash in terms of distance covered, which is like half the screen, but it has a lot of recovery making it hard for him to duck/dash between projectiles. Armoured Raging Charge seems like a good option at first and works against lower level people but it has a lot of options that stuff it. Multi hitting projectiles, Neutral jumps into punish, MB B3, and it's still negative (although with pushback) if it even hits. But remember that it is still an option and can be used against characters such as Darkseid or Starfire (On reads of star dust)
In summary, Bane definitely isn't in the best position tier wise, but if you can get him rolling it works quite well. Advice for when to use command grab is very difficult to give since it majorly depends on how your opponent reacts to your approach. If you do something like a really long range forward dash with venom up, many people do Jump Back in order to dodge a command grab. D1 is an excellent tool to use in the neutral with command grab due to their range (Command grab catches REALLY far)/ Buffering with DB2 is good if you expect your opponent to press buttons since it's his fastest armoured special (and can interrupt a lot of strings if you look at my other thread I made). You really need to just understand how your opponent reacts to Bane in general in order to understand which specials are best for them. Obviously DB2 isn't going to help if your opponent decides to block/run away, but works if your opponent attempts to challenge you with a string.
This got REALLY long and I only just woke up so this is probably in tatters, but ask any questions you need.
