Dredging pits and the fins that love them...

The last couple of days drooling over shots of The Gold Coast doing it's thing has really gotten me thinking of fin setups.
I am already taking two boards with me. A 6'2" Con, keel fin fish for the open points and a 6'10" mini gun for the larger days. I plan on rounding out my quiver with a third board which instantly raised the question, "how many fins"?
Background; I was raised on the thruster. I am from the generation that learned on a single fin but came of age in the developing years of Simon Anderson's invention and how Tom Curren defined for it to be used. There was a period in the late eighties that Quads started to make an appearance, but they were really just modified twin fins of the era that did not work well to begin with. Two fins were ok, four just compounded the problems that the twin already suffered.
Yet, it was not until I picked up a twin fin that I understood what the strengths and limitations of a thruster really were. I love the responsiveness and the forgiveness of the thruster. You can really push off your turns and hold tight in the pocket and you have a platform that you can work with that is reasonably stable . Yet thrusters are slow overall, you can pump speed into them but without serious effort from the rider, the two outside fins, channeling water into the double foiled fin in the back, creates some serious drag and they suck for maintaining speed. Tri-fins however, have some serious drive through turns if properly executed and I find them, compared to twins, very forgiving and stable.
Twin fins are fast as all hell. You can make a drop, push off the bottom, and slingshot your way down the line like a race horse. The bad thing is that they are dangerous in the pocket, especially the more retro styles with softer rails. . This point is crucial as it seems that one trait Queensland surf has is hollowness.
Twin fins slide, this can be a great thing as it is fun as heck extending the turn and feeling the tail start to give, if you can control it. Floater's, you can forget it on a twinnie. It just does not handle it. Perhaps on a performance twin, but on my retro rocket it's a no go.
Now, with modern rockers, templates, rails and foils, the true potential of the four fin has finally been unleashed.Modern quads from what I have been reading, have the best of both worlds. Speed, drive, control, responsiveness, all of it. I am going to have to demo a board or two and do some serious research on this issue. A serious tube time test which I have a feeling I will get plenty of in due course.