Finally! Looking forward to sending this to my parents after it develops a bit more. They've struggled with communication for years (decades?) now because they can't type using phonetics.
Thank you for the tip on speeches! I suspect that will help my writing sound more natural too.
As for (2c), I've come up with a similar idea for doing multiple edits. I try to focus on a different writing "axiom" for each iteration. For example, I can cut out adverbs on the first run-through, add metaphor next, etc.
I don't think the main takeaway is about writing by hand. A word processor is fine too. What's important here is the act of "active writing" vs "passive writing".
Franklin's method forces you to create writing (instead of just ingesting it) and then gives you specific feedback on whether you succeeded or failed (through comparison to the original).
The dissect-chunking-integrate-feedback model works everywhere, and what fascinates me is that Franklin figured it out through his own experiments.