I think that's the basis of some of Harry's internal conversations. In particular, the one in the middle of the end-of-trial deal. He didn't actually stop and think through all of those different facets to his decisions, that conversation is instead what it would have sounded like if he had. In actual experience, it was probably a mental flurry of easily recognized but half-formed thoughts that momentarily caused a system crash in his explicit thinking. He ends up just taking the least embarrassing route, the one where he could behave in retrospect like his actions had been consciously and consistently principled.

Having never met the man, my mental image is basically HJPEV. I imagine him swapping Hufflepuff into the driver's seat, and directing most of his actual concentration to telling Ravenclaw to cram it.

We most likely would not have been to the moon without the Russian Revolution (at least, not by 1969). Kennedy himself thought the space race was a great waste of resources, but supported it as a PR move against the USSR.