Your experience should meet the letter of the rule but I'm wondering if you have any Pattern experience or maybe pylon racing? The reason being that those models behave much differently than your IMAC birds and very similar to a turbine; smaller control deflections, smooth control inputs and with jets, it's all about landing. The throttle delay can be difficult to get a handle on as you must think so much further ahead of the model for adding power. It's better with the newer turbines that spool up a lot faster than the old ones, but you still 'gotta wait, then wait for the airframe to be accelerated as there's no propwash over the control surfaces to get you some additional control authority.
You do not need a waiver for an EDF and despite your thought that those are nearly as expensive as a turbine, that's not the case in virtually all instances. Several of the guys around here and started with a foam EDF that you can buy RTF or BNF and that will teach you something about the throttle lag, and quite a bit about how a turbine will behave in the air. Plus it isn't going to cost you a fortune if you put it in the dirt.
Do some more reading/investigating on your available options.