nice article james. Over 1000 hits. Another thing you should consider is playing over the board tournaments. The thing about Over the board tournaments is that you have time to properly assess a position and also be able to put 100 percent of what you are capable of rather than lower time controls. The only problem is the money, especially in higher rated tournaments. The good tournaments are atleast 1 hour away and it's more or less going to be 2 days so that means you have to rent a hotel for 1 day. I always think financially but thats just me. After you finish an OTB game, you can ask your opponent to analyse your position with a chess board. Human analysis is 10000x more efficient than computer analysis. Also, you will quickly realize that chess is not for geeks and nerds because half the people in these tournaments have a good job, such as lawyers and doctors and they do not have glasses. Will Smith's wife actually paid for a chess grandmaster(2500) for their aniversary
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1800s would do better not to play against 1500s. It does not help their rating as it will get harder and harder to improve your rating. +1 for a win and -30 for a loss (just to give an example) will certainly mean that the 1800 player will lose or draw some of their games and this will take a huge hit to his rating.
Ive noticed that i tend to loose like 1/4 or 1/3 against 1600 players. I am a 1800 rated player on this site on blitz. If i should care about my rating it would be better probably to play against people above or around my own rating strenght.
If you would train like Waitskin you will learn a lot from him. I would advice you to do so as this would fit perfectly with your system.