You just described why so many "older" vehicles were destroyed by fires in the engine compartments every time they changed the gas additives in California about 12-15 years ago. They failed to consider the effects of some of the additives on fuel system components, causing leaks.

As you noted, you can obtain more power with methanol but only if using a lot more fuel per cycle at higher compression ratios. A side benefit is that the type of fuel and the increased flows assist in cooling. Experimentation with jetting is everything if someone wants to run alky fuels. The people doing all the scale racing are the ones that have been doing just about all of the work in this area. Since it's generally the unlimited class of racers where anything goes engine wise to help win they keep thinks pretty close to the chest.