Dude...your edit idea is working fantastic.
I am doing a solo online CFM right now. The only down side is you can't do 32 team CFM. Other than that I find it far better in regards to sim time plus the online CFM site to access my team and actually do team management on my lunch hour! Saves me time at home so i can play games and do game prep.
Once the patch drops though (that hopefully fixes a lot of other bugs and issues) I will do a 32 team CFM.
BTW Game Prep is great. It adds a great layer of strategy and team building decisions. I love it. Also it's really fast and not a grind at all!