So, just for a basic hover you should be able to do it in rate mode without any sort of revo mixing. I take it this means that you'll need to manually control the tail untill you bring the rotors up to speed and get off the ground, is this correct?

I know, that ideally, all your controls should be at dead neutrals (servo as close to a straight 90 degree with the tail lever as possible). However, in my case, a 90 degree tail lever does not end up with the tail pitch slider at the very center of it's full range of movement, but ends up with it being a bit closer to the tail casing. This, obviously, can cause problems, because you'll get binding going one way, and none going the other way, and if you use the gyros limit function, you limit the travel going one way. This may just be a design problem on my helicopter, at any rate, to get a true neutral on the tail pitch slider the tail lever has to be offset a bit from the neutral servo horn.