RE: Starting jitters... normal?
I used the little hand held battery starters for a long time then I got a Radio South Pro-Driver II (the big orange brick). Started using it a year and a half ago. Upon first usage, it would cause my servos to go wild but only when it was activated (applying current to the plug). I wrote Radio South about the issue and they said to switch to PCM.
After making the switch to PCM, never had the problem. Using the Pro-Driver III now and still no issues. PCM might be able to clean up some non-flight noise generators but if you have something generating noise during flight ... it's best to find the source and fix it as opposed to potentially masking the problem with PCM.
Good Luck,
d.tipton