Sorry all - bad form of me to post a question and then go dormant. Was travelling last week.

Understand Dazz's point all too well. We currently have 3mm Dyneema/Spectra for the last few meters of the retrieval and it is a bit hard on the hands getting the last bit of the spinnaker snuffed. I understand its there to prevent spinnaker burns and it seems to work as I have a 4 yr old practice chute with no burns in it yet.

My middle section is nearly all cover w/out core. The only cored portions are the ~.3m retrieval splice and the ~1m cleated area and splice. Thus far have had no twisting issues at all and am using the C2 under-tramp setup as described by Dazz.

A friend of mine uses a dyneema blend singlebraid (Maffioli perhaps?) for all but the last 7-8 meters. Supposedly avoids the twists and protects from burns as well. We've got a 3-day regatta this weekend so I'll watch carefully how his setup fares.

I've got a few regattas left in my current halyard. Will give making my own a try, if the results are not good, I may be subbing it out. Thanks for all your great feedback and recommendations!