If you are returning to chess after 30 years I don't think that you should be worried about using the analysis board, for now you should just try to get back in the habit of playing chess. Also people use analysis boards even in "real" correspondence games (like the USCF ones), sure it's better to be able to do variations in your head, but if you can use an analysis board anyway it really won't give you an edge in daily games. And, sure calculation is important, but pretty much any chess expert will even tell you that working on calculation isn't all that it's cracked up to be, and that it's better to work on positional play. So I think that you're fine using it.
Is using the in-game analysis screen a bad habit?
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I'm trying to return to chess after a 30 year absence and thus far confining myself to daily chess games so as to give me plenty of time to look at all the various responses and potential lines of play. Once I feel like I have some of my game back, I hope to start playing live matches.
I'm finding the analysis mode extremely useful in that I can examine the various moves actually moving the pieces around, undoing, saving good lines, etc. (just to be clear, there's no computer analysis of the positions going on, just me moving pieces around). But I worry a bit that doing this might not be good for my live play where all the piece moving happens in my head. I find myself doing the tactics trainer wishing I could start moving the pieces to get the solution, but I cant.
Should I force myself to get in the habit of doing the analysis all in my head right from the start? Or will playing it out on the screen ultimately help me do it better in my head?