RE: starting with the choke on?
Awww, what the heck.... one thing that **I** have learned, is that if it's 100* + outside, with some humidity (45%+) and you do that "shutdown with choke" thing, you WILL end up with an incredibly-hard-to-start perfectly adjusted engine.
I thought maybe it was me, when I was playing with this choke-shutdown deal..... so repeated it with a different engine/plane setup.
My almost-torn rotator cuff proved it not to be the best setup for me. At least when it is H-O-T.