AncientMariner, I hope your need for
pain control abates. All who keg want foam control.
I'm all for reconsidering conventional wisdom, but I'm not ready to throw beer line length optimization over the rail. Beer line resistance is probably not completely functionally equivalent to faucet flow control. LittleRiver, your experience shows that flow control greatly widens the range of OK line lengths.
One of my lines is shorter than the others. Blazinlow, if this makes it hard to get great pours even with flow control -- and it may -- then you're right about making sure beer lines are at least approximately long enough. Before cutting even shorter to test, I'll need to buy more beer line just in case
The thing I find most interesting (and not at all silly) in all this is finding the right amount of carbonation for each beer. Two equal and optimal/correct beer lines could produce great results for one correctly less carbed beer, and foaming troubles for the other correctly more carbed beer. Or so my very limited experience suggests.
The second most interesting thing is our diverse responses to optimizing and making compromises. I'm drawn to both the value of great experience AND the virtue of new ideas and capabilities. And to having a good time, good beer, and not worrying too much. So I'm really digging faucet flow control, which I hope will help me to reduce the awkwardness of all that beer line in my crowded kegerator.