Oh dang, that's interesting. Well of course I can't speak for how safe/plausible it would be to try that out for obvious reasons so perhaps someone else in here has some experience with that and can weigh in? It definitely all makes sense though.

Do you agree I should probably see how a 2ft section on the warm side works out before getting the extra foot on the cold side, since I can always add it later? As far as the heat tape itself goes, lower wattage correlates to the width, right? If I were to get a lower wattage, I assume I'd be looking for 6in heat tape or do they have 12in at lower wattage as well?