Chris, I've been sort of out of the loop for the last year in terms of monofins. For my style, I prefer a softer fin because I think I tend to undulate better than most, but that's not to say that the style you are developing isn't something worth going with. I have access to some hard fins and will experiment in the next few days. Open heel pockets I think will really cut down your dive time - I find in winter that 30-40 min is that max time for a dive before I need to get out and warm my feet. That's partly why I've been on this no fins kick.
Josh - I think FRC allow proper movement of fluid/blood around the lungs and also gets the vascular pressure in the alveoli and environs normalized, so I would guess this over time either lowers residual volume to some degree or has some other equivalent effect. I got better simply by doing more and more FRC dives.
Yes, I haven't done a full inhale in a while, but I'd say after FRC and making the most of each small lung volume, I would be able to equalize very deep. You could calculate how deep by comparing FRC at 40m and inhale at X depth. But the real proof would be in the puddin'.
2004 was with mild packing since I was already suspicious of it. I think I could now go deeper without packing than with it. Both on an energy consumption level and equalizing. If Umberto can to 100m without packing, then I can set a new PB without it, too. The main issue would be allowing enough time to adjust and test how having relatively full lungs would affect me.
