When to Pitch Dry Yeast?

Okay, I have a question which will seem obvious to those with experience but I don't really know the answer. I've brewed two AG batches so far (one kegged, one still in the primary). I'm using glass Carboys for fermenting. So far I've been using dry yeast without a starter as well.

Here's the thing, so far I've been cooling the wort, then pouring it into the Carboy through a funnel with a stainless screen to aid in re-oxygenating the wort. Then, I've poured in the dry yeast through the small hole and thrown on the airlock. To date it's always worked, but the yeast sits in a concentrated "pool" of dry yeast. What I've been wondering is if adding the yeast to the cooled wort in the boil kettle before pouring everything into the Carboy would (a) work, (b) make a difference by spreading the dry yeast around more, and (c) make enough of a difference that this would be the better way to do things.

Any thoughts?

I've always added my yeast to the carboy BEFORE transferring the cooled wort in. I do the same with gelatin and hops when dry hopping. Same thing with the priming sugar when bottling.

Any reason why you don't hydrate the yeast first? To answer your question, i don't think it will make a difference, though some of the yeast may get caught in the strainer and not make into the fermenter. I doubt it would be enough to make a difference.

Are you using a three or six.five gallon carboy. I use a three gallon, and normally add about a gallon of cooled wort, pitch my yeast, shake up the carboy pretty well and then add the rest of the wort. So far so good.

You either want to rehydrate the yeast, OR sprinkle it gently and don't stir or otherwise mix.

Here's the basic reason why- rehydrating is ideal. The yeast will start absorbing water, through osmosis, and then it can be pitched in wort.

Alternatively, sprinkling is ok (and usually what I do). It's not ideal, and you lose a few yeast cells because instead of uptaking water, the yeast cells uptake wort. That's not enough to kill all that many, but you don't want to stir at the point as you want the yeast to rehydrate by omosis gradually. By sprinkling (not rehydrating) and then stirring or pouring the wort right away you'd be losing more yeast cells that either rehydrating or sprinkling and letting it go. I hope that makes sense.