Well, I finally got my RV ride. Talk about motivation!
Jeff Farrar picked me up at Chandler muni and we spent a fabulous hour tooling around the skys of Arizona in his 8A. Jeff was kind enough to let me fly from the back seat for some of the time, and my first impression was how responsive the plane was, but... it was easy! No twitchiness or feeling of teetering on an edge at any time.
Jeff did a power off stall and held the stick back and the plane just burbled along floating down like a leaf with no significant tendency to drop a wing. He tried to do a departure stall, but at full throttle, an insane deck angle and still 50fpm climb with the AOA going off in our headsets, the engine was getting warm and he dropped the nose to get some airflow. It seemed like we hung on the prop forever.
We were too heavy (and no chutes) for acro, but I felt my first 3G turn and we did a Chandelle... both very cool. I started hooting and laughing in the midst of the turn and Jeff straightened it out thinking that I was about to hurl or something

, but I was having a ball.
Props also to the Chandler airport. The Hanger Cafe has awesome breakfast burritos. Chandler Air Service also does tailwheel and acro training in Great Lakes and Pitts aircraft. I'm thinking of going down for a vacation/training week once I get my plane built.
Anyway, thanks Jeff. You made my week.