Well, I finally got new LEDs in, thanks to the nice people at Renoylds Electronics, who shipped another batch of LEDs after the first got lost in transit. I replaced the LEDs currently on the yoyo with OED-EL-1L2s, which have a 60 degree beam angle. This seems to have made a ton of difference, as the drawing program now makes tricks identifiable, especially with the scribbles where hold points are.
For instance, a sleeper:
And a trapeze:
Next step is getting all of this out of Max/MSP and into either PD or OpenFrameworks, as my Max demo license ran out and I'm not throwin' down the cash until they finally announce their pricing scheme for Max 5.