Good detail. One small one that may have been overlooked (some reason it hides so well...) Check the dynamic dropdowns configuration section. That is from where the notifications that you are seeing are controlled. The identification (left/right/neither) of the product being out-of-stock as well as a couple of other settings.

If don't want to have any indication of stock quantities on the product page, could turn off dynamic dropdowns entirely and the customer will not be made known of any stock related options until the product is added to the cart and attributes will be presented as originally "chosen" without a sequencing requirement.