Lew, I agree with a lot of what you stated, but not with all of it. You are about the only person I know of, that sprays the glue onto the block of taped up wood with glue before adding the pattern. That's backwards in my book, and it leads to a lot of mess. You would be forever getting the excess glue on your fingers, when you touched the block where there is no pattern applied. The best and proven way to glue your pattern to the wood, is to just apply glue to the back of the pattern. I usually use square or rectangular stock, and before adding glue any pattern I want to cut. I cut away the excess paper so that I know where to spray the glue, doing it this way I don't waste a bunch of glue by spraying it where it isn't needed.
Len