You did an excellent bit of reporting here Somegeek. I use nearly the identical procedure with great success. All my large planes use pull-pull on elevator and rudder and all have a slight bit of Ackerman built in. I have the cables just snug enough to have no sag at neautral. I've never had a failure duing it that way and some of my planes are 15 years old or older with literly hundreds of flights on them.