Sarge,
Thanks for the quick response.
Technically I have only been smoking on weekends. To date I have smoked pork ribs (x2), pork butt, hamburgers, bacon wrapped hot dogs, brats, hot links, bacon wrapped jalapeno poppers, tri tip, bacon wrapped baked potatoes, spatchcock chicken, and chicken wings. Even my failures were generally as good, if not better, than the local so called BBQ food joints. Just not legendary, but I am confident that wil come. I am still trying to man up to a brisket... All in all not too bad for one month.
As for flipping, I understand that SI is the ultimate in lazy-Q and that flipping breaks the commandment of "thou shalt not open/peek" but the reason for me flipping is that I am absolutely neurotic about crispy chicken skin, so I smoked the wings full throttle (350) for two hours, flipping half way through. I had very little issue with sticking (maybe 3 or 4 wings out of 10 pounds), though I did spray the racks with Pam before hand. In retrospect I would have also rotated the top and bottom racks. Only after they were done did I introduce the wings to any sauce (I goosed some Frank's sauce with garlic, butter, black pepper, and worcestershire sauce).
My real concern with the stiff racks is that wrestling with them has caused me to (unknowingly) sacrifice a number of goodies to the smoke gods. I am hopeful things will loosen up over time and/or that my need for maximum food will be better balanced against my space management skills. My family of five can do an amazing amount of damage to hot wings, before having friends over...