Great work with that guide Spook!
What you have described is exactly how I have learned to sail the TI, with the exception that I always hike out if the wind is strong enough.
Re the Miragedrive in/out debate ...if the wind is strong enough and I can sail faster than I can pedal (around 6-8km/h) then I always pull the drive, fit the plug and purely sail. The TI tacks much better than the AIv1 (don't know about AIv2?) but both boats tack better if the pedals are removed, assuming of course you are not pedaling.
Someone on this forum years ago described pulling the unused drive as like releasing a handbrake and I found the same.
At speed I hated the fluttering of the unused fins against the hull when horizontal and the extra drag, weed catching etc when vertical.
BTW- Tony, the fins when vertical do offer lateral resistance. We discovered that in the early days when sailing our Oasis with 2 sails. It was very noticeable the difference in side slip with the fins down compared to up against the hull. So much so that I used to stick an eyebolt through the adjustment holes to lock the fins vertically. We could then sail into the wind quite well without pedaling. That was until I added a daggerboard, which does work better of course.
The best accessory I've found for improving sailing was adding tramps and later haka to enable hiking out. One of the basic rules of sailing is that a 'level boat is faster'. Hiking out keeps the boat level and minimises drag from the buried ama which = faster!