George,
I thought you would like the switches. I also bought manual switches as they did not have an electric operator at the time I bought mine. The Merkur solution uses servo motor and controllers similar to what RC cars and planes use, but I am sure you could use them with any other switch machine. You could even use them with a Lever frame/rodding control system like Hornby and Bassett Lowke used to make. I like the fact that you can move the operating lever to either side of the switch, and since you can remove them will make it easy to convert to something different.
About the 1681, the e unit in those have always been "twitchy". i have had one drop into reverse on a straight run at a good speed, luckily there were no derailments. In your video it looks like the wheels on the inside of the curve are shorting out on the brass center rail extension that runs back towards the inside rail. it might be possible to bend the brass rail towards the part that rotates (what would that be called? the point sector?) to give a little more clearance between the outside rail and the brass center rail.
Roland
