Didn't read everything in this thread, but just want to weigh-in on a few things.
Ladybugs will NOT take care of a mite infestation in any reasonable time before harvest is necessary. When you get them they are too tired to do anything but have sex and reproduce, then they die off, and the future generation will eventually go to work. This will take months, or the entire lifetime of the plant. If your plants went year-round, a large-enough number of ladybugs might be able to control the problem before harvest time, though your plant will still have a poor yield, pop, and taste like crap. They are better-suited to creating a population in a certain area outdoors to prevent other pests from establishing themselves in the future.
Foliar feeding works like a charmduring any stage of the plant's growth, though I recommend stopping within a few weeks of harvest for taste reasons. I always foliar feed with an oscillating fan under reasonably warm conditions when humidity is low. When the solution is starting to dry up I hit it with plain distilled water to prevent residue and allow the plants to absorb any remaining nutes. I heard someone say foliar feeding is "not a miracle", to downplay the benefits of it, but I would compare the benefits to what you would get using CO2. I think most people would agree that the benefits of CO2 are undeniably huge, and I believe foliar feeding to be comparable in its performance. When there are significant buds I will spray more lightly (little or no dripping). Water can generally escape if it gets inside the buds, but it takes time and I like to give a week between sprays. Sometimes I like to spray from above with a dollar store spray bottle, about one spray per 2'x2' area. Not enough for it to drip, but enough for the solution to touch the tops/leaves, to give them a boost. When doing it this way I do it repeatedly, but when I'm done I let it dry for a week. I have a cooltube, so I do it first thing in the "morning" with lights on, no problems.
There was someone showing a Dalat harvest to show the benefits of foliar feeding. Not trying to start an argument, but that's not an abnormally large Dalat cola, that's just the way the plant grows and it isn't really that dense. I've seen other cola pictures around here that probably represented a much greater yield.