How many of those yard sale clamps are actually different lengths, or are most of them just the same few sizes with a couple oddballs? I ask because I ran into the same thing, and when I actually measured mine I had about four sizes doing 90 percent of the work. The odd ones I hang on a separate board with hooks spaced wider, no slots, so a 43 inch clamp still goes up sideways or angled. Nothing says every clamp has to sit in a cut slot, the rack just has to get them off the bench and in sight. Sounds like your real problem is you reach for the odd ones most, so maybe those are the ones that should be front and center, not the matched set.

Two cross on a disc wheel is fine for most riders, but the torque from a disc brake hub does pull differently than rim brake. Been building for years and the older guys at the shop always pushed 3 cross for anything with a hub brake, they said the same thing about it feeling soft. Ran 2 cross on my own gravel set once and could feel the wheel wind up a bit under hard braking, though it wasn't terrible. Switched those to 3 cross and it did feel more solid, but it also could've been the spoke tension being better the second time. Half the "noodly" feeling people talk about is just bad tension, not the pattern. Your coworker might be old school but he's not totally wrong either.