I ride a north vegas and am usually in shit gusty conditions, the adjustable reach they have on their bar is F'n sweet for this. I adjusted the bar so there is very little bar throw, and use a TON of trim strap to deal with the gusts.

With a short throw it allows you to pull more depower strap, and thus when unhooked and overpowered you are riding with less power than if you had a bunch of bar throw still to use when underpowered, you just let her out. and you still have the same wind range.

It's a bit more of a beast when hooked in when a gust hits. As you have little throw and less instant depower so it forces you to ride using your edge or bear off a lot more but you get the hang of it and usually can get the feel for reading the gusts pretty well.

Yes that is correct. Push the kite forward with a strong edge, bare off wind and unhook. Then edge into your pop. Depending on your kite will determine how long you can edge before releasing your edge. A kite that flies deep in the window will let you hold an edge longer, a kite that flies closer to edge will be a quick edge then pop.

It's all about practicing on your gear to get it dialed in to what you are comfortable with.

What Joe said. Totally agree.
But look, I think you need to just keep throwing tricks. Learning any new trick means getting smashed over and over. But once you've got it down, you can generally start throwing that same trick more harder and powered, and land it even in crappy conditions.