Your baby looks good man, don't beat yourself up. I have heard that size isn't everything anyways. Sounds like you have a good plan in place, and a single 24" tall plant can still yield quite a bit depending on strain. A lot of commercial growers using sea of green would tell you that a 2 foot flowering plant is perfect.

Don't feel inferior, you wouldn't want your lady to know you felt that way. Stand proud and treat her right, and she will do the same to you.

As for triggering flowering, my rule of thumb is that if you can see preflowers and the plant has switched from symmetrical to asymmetrical growth, time to flower.

If you feel you will run into problems with height, do a search on here for LST or FIM, or height control. You aren't the first one with this issue and there are a ton of threads demonstrating how to deal with height.

Hang in there, all looks good.