Getting more out of a stock E-Starter

So I've been flying for a bit now. I'm still having a hard time knife-edging and doing spins, which may be as much a plane limitation as the pilots. I'm pretty good with inverted flight, and my rolls are doing better.
This last week I picked up a Craftsman Voltage and Amp meter to do some testing. I'm pulling 7.4 AMPS on a GWS 9050 at 5000 ft here in Denver, and 8.4 Amps with an APC 9.0x4.7. I think I'll try out a 9.0x6.0 or so and see how she pulls then. I don't fly most of the time at full throttle, so I plan on pinning the amps at the 9.3 which should be the max for the GWS 400 motor.
One minor catastrophe happened during all of this. I forgot to screw the motor on after doing some testing. So it's fairly nice out, not perfect, but certainly flyable, and the wife and our little girl come out with us. I rev up the motor to hand launch and off it comes and takes a chunk off the wing and breaks a strut. I glued the wing chunk back in, fixed a crack in the fuse, and started repairing the strut, though I'm flying without it.
I flew her once since then, and she's still flying good. I cranked up the throws on all the control surfaces, and checked them for clearance. The aileron deflection made a big difference. Loops can come about a lot quickly, though she's still squirrelly on her side. The elevator throw also makes inverted flight more sustainable, and I can even climb a bit, though not really. It's too bad this week should be blustery, though I will fly if I get a chance.
One last change I'm debating, is to cut the wings off where the dihedral starts, and to glue them back on flat. Allot of people say they like this allot, and even with a thinned fuse on the e-starter. I should get a Formosa in June, but probably nothing else before or after, so maybe I'll do this mod the end of march to perk up my flying fun.