Luv2 - you've got the right idea about the lipo, I used a 2200 3S a while ago, it was fine for high winds cos you could "punch" you're way through the gusts and it flew for 25 minutes (15C). That was fine, but I changed to 1300 3S and got better flights cos the plane turned better and climbed easily. Even my 1700 2S is brilliant at the same weight as the 3S.
The tail: mine is stock but with cut-outs so that the elevator on full up-travel doesn't touch the rudder, which also has about 1/2in. cut-out near the bottom - n chance of the two touching.
My elevator servo is mounted at the rear so that the control rod is only 6in., this makes the control instant with no flexing of the cable. Weight-wise: its only a 9grm servo (Towerpro) so it doesn't affect the CoG too much and is easily rectified. Here are some piccy, don't know if they show the servo clearly. Note the folding prop and the cell-phonebattery holder.....