I've noticed this with drums too. Trying out more complex things that required more coordination than I'd typically been able to use up to that point... I noticed that after taking a long break - like 6mo, between bands, etc - with me playing very little in between, I could then sit down and play the thing I couldn't before effortlessly.
Cool! I agree that using prepared statements is indeed the best way to handle this stuff.
There were plans to build out the binary protocol in Trilogy as well, it just hadn't been wrapped up by the time it was made open source. And if I recall, that branch fell pretty far behind. Maybe now that it is OSS, someone can contribute that :)
I still don't understand it, but I'm here for it.