Spike,
I was focused on overcoming some bad habits. A few months ago I played with the shims for my M2 and dropped the butt. A much better fit and reduced recoil. However, with the drop I realized that the targer was obscured in many situations and that was causing me to raise my head to see the target, leading to many misses. So I acquired a raised comb pad and now the gun shoots 60/40. Part of the lesson was making sure the fit was correct and correcting the bad habit of head lifting. So in some ways, it was similar to your item 2.
The second part of the lesson focused on fast crossers. Had a lot of trouble with them. The cure here was to improve my mount and start the mount while turning with the target. Worked wonders and I was hitting most of the targets. I had been basically "jabbing" the gun into position such that my timing had to be perfect rather than using a measured swing in combination with the mount. So again, somewhat similar to your experience and what others have suggested above.
What felt good about the lesson was that the instructor worked on the items I needed help on rahter than using a generic lesson. A little more practice on the learnings from the last lesson and I will be back for another before I pick up some other bad habits.