It will be a race without a bubbler in the saucer.
You musta missed the bubble-bucket part...That'd be a pretty pathetic root-mass display--half-inch roots in a sun-baked saucer.....

Don't even like net pots much. The good ones are too strong and cut into the roots.
I remember that third pic. You'd captioned it, "This lady had to quit the dance early because her shoes got too tight" or something like that. It stuck in my mind :tin foil hat: cause I wondered why you couldn't use some little diagonal cutters to open up some Ausgange for the larger roots...

Ooops...gotta run...but about castling: is there a "normal" response to an opponent's castle in terms of which side I might castle to? Do players like to be castled face-to-face, or catty-corner?

I somehow picked up the impression there's a general advantage to castling queenside (which would just figure, cause you've gotta move one additional piece outta the way). Or is it situational, depending on how the opponent's got his pieces deployed?