I love your 'glowing letter of recommendation' idea, 
   there is a small downside to that though, which is that
   your letter will set expectations rather high

True, honesty is certainly a must, I should have stated that by glowing I meant only a cut above the usual dry business tone of such things. In my experience the letter of recommendation, like the rest of a CV, just gets your foot in the door - after that it's down to you to shine. But for an inexperienced candidate, getting a foot in the door is a big thing. I got my first real job in Europe purely based on a recruiter who got me telling my manager-to-be "you have to meet this crazy African kid, he has no qualifications but has hacked every device he's laid hands on since age 8, and set up an ISP" or words to that effect, with an endorsement like that, I was bound to get at least a trial.

   There is an opportunity right here now, once every
   month, the 'who wants to be hired' thread. I encourage
   you to post there when it rolls around next month, who
   knows what you'll land.

Thanks for that! Monitoring the thread, more out of curiosity than anything else, I suspect I'm probably no longer ideal for that sort of thing. As I think we've discussed before (you've seen my CV, we met at another HNer's wedding, and chatted by email a number of times) I've since changed the focus of my career, and working for any sort of large company and probably within any sort of formal structure really isn't on the books for me. I did that for far too long, and got far too jaded by the experience to approach it any sort of good attitude. These days I prefer to tinker and hack all things as interest takes me. I've spent the last year writing + renovating & automating a house beyond reason, I think next I want to try a boat of some kind :)