I think using knee torque when playing half guard and using a lockdown when playing half guard has more similarities with regards to procedures than one might think; in fact, you could say the way you use a lockdown effectively, itself involves torquing the knee this way or that.
I think that's only natural though, since both are looking to get to and use the underhook, and if there are more effective methods of doing something, effective people will tend to converge on them, even if from different starting points.
I think I'm decent once I get the underhook. When I get to dogfight or even a bit before I don't have great difficulties in moving things up. My main problems are:
1) with people that wants nothing to do with this kind of game and will either stay really tight and really far, or try to reverse pass me, stay with the head very low and the arms very tucked and the such. Or people trying to leg weave me. That's usually most of the stuff that stall me out for good.
2) I suffer immensely heavier and stronger people that (obviously) knows a bit where to put their hands. To give you an example, using de la riva I can control and sweep with relative ease the same heavier guy that would give me hell if I play traditional UH game.
Of course I'm not blaming the guard itself as there is probably really a lot I'm doing wrong in the transitions.
I've always loved this position since the old Oli Geddes days to Lucas Leite and Demian Maia today and would love to understand the overall concepts better. None of my teachers were great HG players or put a big emphasys on it, so I've always been kinda an autodidact.
The whip down is a good way of recomposing a 'smashed half' and getting your underhook in. This is probably the most useful thing you can use a scorpion lock for (getting out of bad hg situations and getting your underhook in), and once you're there you're free to either keep it or switch the legs for your attack as desired.
Bravo swept Royler Gracie three times in their match and it's a good case study on dealing with someone trying to smush you and getting to the staging points you need.
(There is a lot of similarity between electric chair sweeps and the roll-under sweeps a lot of athletes like Faria or Leites use.)
The reverse sit can be a tricky thing to deal with, since it pretty much automatically precludes most of the 'usual' ways of playing half-guard. It opens up some other avenues too however, specifically with regards to attacking the back, such as grabbing their far shoulder with a 100%/cow catcher/power half grip, and/or using a half butterfly hook behind the knee or in the thigh to enter into a leg ride.
The elbow push escape is also an option.
If the other guy is dogged about just staying low and keeping his arms tight, you can simply get a chin strap grip, or double wrist lock, or some other form of head control, and start hip heisting out, getting your feet back under you and reversing the situation into your own attack.
(Incidentally, the funk roll specifically is also good when the other guy rides his free knee up high in half in order to launch strikes, like how Cormier often does in his fights.)
In wrestling, one of the basic principles of winning chain sequences and other furballs, is getting to a better rooting than your opponent faster than your opponent, giving yourself superior structure/leverage for driving through and bowling them over. That is a big reason why i consider some of the more generally reliable half-guard reversals to involve getting up and getting behind your opponent, like shelfing the leg, stepping around into a leg ride/truck, or throwing them by.
Another is that if you can realize greater
ubiquity for a certain tactic, the more training time you can concentrate into that tactic, which translates into greater capability in application. So for example, if you are good in the dogfight situation, then it would be good if you had positional advancements from neutral and advancements from bottom that both participated in entries and finishes related to the dogfight situation.