Hi Jeff,
Good analogy regarding Globular and cool mints
. Imaging globular clusters, you need good seeing. Globular clusters don't handle sharpening very well. That's been my experience anyway. Pleasing to see you've got over the black clipping hurdle in this recent batch of images. While you are probably keen to image as much as possible, may I suggest you sit on a target a night. Collect as much data as technically possible. These two images scream for more data. Take 5-10min subs and heaps of them to start with. As you get your polar alignment sorted, go longer (providing your environmental conditions and equipment will permit it).
A quick way of testing your data quality is a digital development stretch. If you've got inherent noise in the combined subset, you'll probably need more data or calibration wasn't effective. You can tighten up stars which are bloated using deconvolution (to a point). You're on the right track, just focus on a single target and collect as much data as possible. The more data you have to work with, generally the easier the image will become to process. Dealing with noise is never a pleasurable experience. Look forward to more as you progress.