Okay.
You have a lot going on there and I'm not sure I will specifically address exactly what you have going on but here goes...
I live in WI and won't order yeast in the summer or winter. Period. Luckily there are 3 homebrew shops and they are relatively accomodating should l need something specific and I am able to work with their schedule. If I need something I can talk to them, they will order what they can get and I will know it has been properly cared for rather than left in some UPS truck for who knows how long.
As for starters I use the calculators as a guideline. I am not a pro brewer, I am not independently wealthy, I am not a serious competition guy. I do what I am comfortable with for the given beer within those parameters and hope for the best. It usually works out fine.
Liquid vs. dry... This is an ongoing debate that, from what I can tell, is based on past poor dry yeast technology. I have made good beer with both. I have placed in local/regional competitions using both. I know brewers that use both. I was recently on a ytour at Dark Horse in MI and was told that both they and Arcadia use dry yeast as their house strain. They do culture it and blend it with fresh yeast and have gone through several hundered generations with goal of then mutating strain creating a house character. ...it was an interesting conversation that is fading with time, I wish I had taken notes but what I will always remember is that great beer can and is being made commercially with dry yeast strains that are easily available to you and I.
As for the rest, you could look into slanting and proping your yeast in order to make one pack of yeast equal to many and having your prefered strains available to you as you see fit.
...I hope I answered or helped a little.