OK, that makes good sense; I will wait. I have been thinking of the frame disassembly; that is one nice thing about having the "tubes" a la Tarot frames. I wonder what would be a simple way to have some sort of adapter between the frame and gimbal mount to avoid having to disassemble the frame to get access to the gimbal attachment (again, having no access to machine tools).
Yes
@Mactadpole, I did get the encoders. I will do whatever I can to share my experience in order to help others benefit from it. There is so much "gimbal stuff" out there now but seemingly with a very poor signal/noise ratio (or bias), so real world honest to goodness experience will hopefully be a useful contribution to the greater community.
As for landing gear, I have 315mm QuadFrame light legs. For the vast majority [if not all] of my flight study I will be a sole operator, so I don't have much need for freely yawing the gimbal vs. simply yawing the craft. But if it becomes useful for survey, I definitely would be interested in exploring retractable options.
Battery, yes I have the QuadFrame battery plate. It is valuable to know your positive experience with putting halves alongside the FC plate; I will have to consider that.