As an aside, a quick google search brought me to the Nasa Tech. Repts. Server that you both talked about, and another quick search brought up...well, lots of hits. But near the top of the list was this report about "
A thermal scale modeling study for Apollo and Apollo applications" (vol. 2). Now my connection at work is dismal, and after about 25 minutes the pdf is still loading so I haven't gotten a chance to look at it yet, but I have a feeling based on the title that a good many of IDW's questions are answered therein. Of course, this report comes from "The Man", so of course it is "rigged" with "misinformation". Oh well, mr head meet mr wall.
Edit: Oops forgot to include link. Fixed.