Dude, thanks for sharing your stories. Regarding story #1, I have accepted that if the cop shows up to my court date (if I lose TWD), I have a very slim chance of swaying the judge and would at that point change my plea to guilty and hopefully get a reduced fine and maintain the option to go to traffic school.
Go to traffic school ahead of time.
I got a ticket for doing 70 in a 55 (on a stretch of freeway whose speed limit was raised to 65 about a year later! How's that for bullshit?).
I went to recorder's court for my arraignment, talked to the prosecutor, and got offered a bad plea deal, so I pled not guilty. That caused the case to be moved to state court.
I went to state court for my (second) arraignment, talked to the prosecutor, and got offered an even worse deal, so I told the judge I needed a continuance to go get a lawyer.
While I was at one of the arraignments -- I forget which -- I also had a short chat with a defense attorney somebody else had hired, and he told me that of the two charges (speeding in general, and speeding X mph in a Y zone), a reasonable plea deal would be to plead guilty to the first one and get the second dropped (the "X in a Y" charge results in points against your license; the first one doesn't). I tried to get the prosecutors to drop the "X in a Y" charge, but both so far would only agree to the opposite (dropping the generic charge, and keeping the one that would put points on my license).
Then, I finally realized I should
preemptively take a traffic safety class.
I went back to the state court for my (third) arraignment, told the prosecutor that I was really really sorry and had taken a safety class to show my sincerity, and he immediately proposed a much more reasonable plea deal (including dropping the "X in a Y" charge).
I had been hoping to negotiate a reasonable plea without taking the class, but that was essentially impossible. I could have saved myself a lot of time if I'd just gone ahead and done it in the first place.
(Of course, in GA traffic safety class is $100 instead of $300, so that might make your situation different.)