I finally tested the $100 9:1 on Monday. It is awesome. Smooth as silk, and eases more easily than anything else I've used. Pictures in a couple weeks, after more extensive testing. The sheeting range is more than adequate for racing, and seems adequate for all my sailing.

Unanticipated details:

The boom-end sheeting means a more sheeting angle than anticipated, which reduces the leach-tensioning advantage. An 8:1 mounted more forward would have less boom compression and comparable leach tensioning advantage. The forward angle means I need to remove some more material to keep the sheet from rubbing on the boom, and that I would have mounted the internal blocks at different angles to better align with the peak (close hauled) loads if I knew this at the time.

Another thing I noticed is how easing the traveler on a reach reduces luff tension by changing the forward sheeting angle, so one does not want the system to bottom-out at max-close-hauled sheeting, as one might need to sheet in more to keep the sail flat when the traveler is eased to depower upwind.

Unlike the photos, I now have a very clean pigtail system, using wide-eyed adjustable eye splices in vectran; and I added a simple outhaul, which will be upgraded later with race-style under-boom cleating.

I'm not very concerned about hidden wear, since the 1/2" mainsheet and 1/4" vectran secondary are each more than 10 times stronger than the loads require.