Chris,
All your points are well taken, and I have realized that your talent and skill building robust systems is a must to contend with those wind periods 50-90 (+) mph. I think you and all the people that are lucky enough to have average winds 10-15mph (because you all live in the jet-stream geographical areas, for the most part) also must consider these extreme furling and equipment damaging issues. On the other hand, there are those of us that haven't seen 45(+) mph winds since the last Hurricane!
What I described as our conditions for this discussion, are consistant enough that our generators are lucky if they produce acceptable power 10-20% of the time-- when we are lucky enough to get winds! I think we would be taking precautions (including lowering our rigs if necessary) if winds exceeding hurricane force is headed our way.
So with all that said, we are just looking for another way of increasing our average power production periods. In my case leveraging your idea of the chain driven transmission to bring the generator I have, into its powerband more of the time.
Hope I haven't offended you. I just got the feeling you weren't envisioning our realistic wind situation.
Bill