The hopping is different for an imperial than it is for a stout. If you leave it as an imperial it will be under hopped. You are safe to add your water prior to bottling, most of the big breweries (Bud, Coors, Miller) do this to get more volume.
I'm a little behind in my reporting.
19,243+
25 gallons Pale Ale 03/14
25 gallons Red Ale 04/14
25 gallons Rye IPA 05/14
25 gallons Golden Ale 06/14
19,343
I built a 3 tier monstrosity my first time out. I learned from that and built a 2 tier automated brewery. Now I can brew under my patio.
Go with a single tier low enough to see in the pots and you will be happy, you just have to invest in pumps.
Both take two hands to operate but the CL's are smaller and cheaper. I put all CL's on my brewery and I'm happy with them, just keep a rag handy because there's always a bit of liquid in them when you pull them off.
I've been brewing 20 years and not once have I criticized anyone's beer. I have pointed out defects and how to fix them but even if it was horrible I never say anything disparaging, I keep it positive and offer to help.
The restriction is only at the head so it won't really solve the problem of Co2 coming out of solution at high pressure. If the beer had to go through the threads you would get better restriction but it would never seal in the dip tube.
I had one I couldn't get the rootbeer smell out of even after changing the o-rings. I made 5 gallons of lemonade and used that keg now it no longer smells like rootbeer.