Glad I could provide some useful input. I'm very new to wooden ship models, my background is in plastic vehicle modelling but I always enjoy the research to focus on accuracy.
I'm currently building Billings Roar Ege to get my feet wet, so to speak, and may well try something else prior to trying the Bounty. It came up in an auction here from an insurance company and I acquired it for less than half the normal retail.
And the paragraph of instructions in the Billings kit make the Artesania Latina effort for the Bounty look brilliant, although, as you have pointed out, I'm sure I'll discover their shortcomings in due course.
If your wanting to include ballast then this may be an easy solution, I've used this before with my kits and 3.2mm square is close enough in scale to the actual 3" ballast found on site.