Bruce,First off, thanks very much for trying. You may get lucky in December.
I'll have to disagree with your assumptions about "copy by ear." Do understand that I am also a now CW-only guy, with 61 years of ham experience. So, I also have those natural feelings about the power of CW through the ears into the brain.
But, reality is different. Use of DSP techniques in programs like Argo and Spectrum Laboratory will produce visual copy of slow-speed (QRSS60), stable signals in the LF region at least 20 dB below anything you can detect by ear. That's a huge difference. Not practical at HF below about QRSS3, though, due to Doppler shift and propagation anomalies. So, your experience is more relevant up there.
And given the extremely low ERPs for Lowfer Part 15 operation, and the higher noise levels due to electronic interference in recent years, normal speed CW has become quite difficult except for local operation, maybe in the same town.
John, W1TAG