Quick update on this. I have now successfully got plate solving working with AstroTorilla. It is awesome! So I can polar align quickly and easily thanks to Sharpcap and get an object centered just as easily. I seem to be able to get bewteen 1-2 minute exposures unguided with nice stars, haven't tried for longer yet and haven't needed to thanks to LP and the Moon.
I can't get PHD2 to work though, which says a lot about my abilities given the acronym
.