RE: I need a crash course on what rudders/elev/ailerons do.
In case you missed it I'll just stress the earlier post about how the rudder and dihedral work together to roll the model into the turn. The rudder only yaws the model. The dihedral when yawed causes the airflow to strike the two wings with different angles of attack and that generates more lift on one wing and less lift on the other to roll the model. Ailerons do the exact same thing by altering the camber and angle of attack for each wing to roll the model.
As for linkages to connect the ailerons to one servo the strip ailerons driven from near the center line is one way. Also way back when servos were too pricey to use one in each panel but when we wanted to use normal outer panel only ailerons like in a scale model we used to use one in the center laid down with the output out to either side with pushrods running through the wing to bellcranks to "turn the corner" and then short pushrods from the bellcranks to the ailerons. Later on with the arrival of Nyrods some folks gave up on the bellcranks and used the Nyrods where they run out along the wings and then curve through a 90 degree bend to drive the conventional outer only ailerons directly without requiring bellcranks.