Hey Chris, I didn't read your requests for additional experiments. If you can figure out the best, most palatable diet for redears, you might have a marketable food. Experiment with their diets. Your number two is a good one.
Another "common sense" experiment is to see if redear will still eat the "normal" foods of snails. The main reason people use redear in pond management today is to help reduce the incidence of snails, reducing the incidence of grubs in their game fish. Plus, a big redear is fun on light tackle. If you can figure out the two questions posed in my post, you will help develop another reason to grow redear sunfish...to see how big they get.

Teach a man to grow fish...
He can teach to catch fish...