I think you're right that they may have more hydraulic demand on NZL.
Your earlier point about the cyclors having free hands to adjust things seems to me as a key strategy so you can designate people certain tasks rather than have one or two folks control all that while they are trying to get their head out of the boat and watch strategy, wind, etc.
There was some rumor circulating that the rear cyclor had twist handle grips to control the flight height of the boat...I'm not sure about that. After reading several of the rule clarifications, I suspect he has a gear ratio control for the group of cyclors there. One of the requests specifically asked about an automatic gear change system based on hydraulic pressure and the measurement committee said that any gear change had to be manual. While they can probably do some simple tasks, their heads are mostly down and they're really cranking out the energy - I don't think they can really do much else.
