Hell yeah boss, I hear you loud and clear. And you are right about the absolute load thing. In addition to that, back tweaks aside, in general I'm pretty sure my day-to-day back pain and stiffness have gone down significantly already.
I have also been reading the blue book again and starting from scratch (not with the weight but with the technique), and I did forget a lot since I read it last. And it's pretty impressive how he's right about all the things I do wrong in his "The Important Things You're Going To Do Wrong section. Here he talks about: depth, knee position, stance, eye gaze, back angle, hip drive, bar placement, rack height - which is essentially a checklist of all the feedback I've received so far. It's almost as though he's done this before. I also definitely don't think I have the hip drive thing down yet, but I'm working on it.
I am also starting to work with a local coach. He's not SSC certified unfortunately (there aren't any around here), but he's been on SS for years, has worked with an SSC coach, has extremely impressive lifts for a man his age - or any age for that matter, and used to be a professional athlete. I am doing this because I want to have in-person sessions, and then after that I'll probably look for an online SSC coach if I still need it. You guys need a bigger footprint in Canada!