Not a bad effort, but you could try going longer on your subs and if you are not doing it already use a bahtinov mask. Magnify the image to around 200% and be really picky about each line being symmetrical. Use an iso of around 400-800.
Nice going and glad to hear you got some imaging done in the end. It's a nice image and I really like the framing too.
I agree that with wide fields like these, it can be a bit of pain to get the balance right between nebulosity and stars as there are so many of the latter swamping the former.
Try to shrink the stars a little by putting the stars in a mask and using a Minimize filter on them. Noel Carboni's actions for PS also have script that does something similar.
I attached a repro using a completely different method (no shrinking involved due to the low resolution of the posted image) but it demonstrates how attacking the stars gives the nebula a bit of breathing space. It makes it easier on the eye.
