Thank you all so much! It seems that I'm (understandably) just still new to this and I'll likely get better with practice. I really appreciate all the tips and guides. I did end up finding the Appraise This guide so thank you for making it! I'm just glad to know I didn't miss some vast and obvious well of knowledge, and that it's really just building up my personal mental library and heuristics. And don't worry, I understand exactly what you mean regarding thinking of the brain as RAM. If only it didn't get reset when I went to sleep!

I also really appreciate the suggestions and interpretations of the cheddar, especially the suggestion to think in terms of Elegance / Power and Originality / Power trade-offs. From what I gather, it seems interpreting rules/DM fiat in my favor is allowed as long as it's sane. I might post a few specific questions after judging is over to just get a general feel for where the line is so I have better intuition for next time.

All that being said, thank you to H_H_F_F for judging and I'm excited to see the final results and the next SI!