If you're going to keep the 210 for a while maybe get a quote from Nordic, Saleen, etc to see what it would cost to clean up the deck and remove the purple and pink down the sides.
I think if you...
You could easily pull the rope out of two skiers hands if you wanted. Maybe 3 seconds to plane? Not sure how hard you were on the throttle coming out of the hole
Any advice sounds like we are heading through the narrows then finding a beach to post up at. If we have the houseboat moving by 10-11 am I'm thinking we want to find our destination by 6ish?
Did the grabbing get worse with the new spacers? Seems that with twins you wouldn't need to drop the props as low as say a single. What was your X dimension on the single 270s?
WOT marine (advertiser here) can probably give you a lead on a motor in that range. There's a 225 Promax on eBay right now. Pictures are a little rough but you never know