It looks great and certainly that's good production. Have you noticed much difference between the old blades and the new? I noticed the newer blades seemed to have a bit thicker cord, but the photo may have been before you completely finished them down.
We used a small hand-winch at the base of our tower for quite awhile. It worked perfectly fine, and no question where it is positioned. The downside is that sometimes when you want to shut it down its freezing, the wind is screaming and it's snowing side-ways.
I've gained quite a bit of confidence with the actuator control that we're using now. I can pretty much shut it down fom the house in any sort of wind. I often shut ours down when I turn in for the night if it is really rough conditions. Sleep better that way. I also have it set to trigger thru the Classic, Aux1, on PV V on High. It is set for about 126V, with very short delay. This is higher, but not alot above the clipper set-point (~115V IIRC). As soon as the controller starts to unload the turbine, the voltage will climb very rapidly. If it persists, the thing will shut-down on its own - it did it just a few days ago if strong sustained, high-gust conditions. I have the reset voltage set quite low, like 35V, so it in effect prompts a manual reset unless conditions really fall off (and PV is also not pushing the voltage up).
Good luck and keep us posted on progress.