Actually flop, turn, and river are on both ramps whenever they're available. Don't disable the posts, use the "Flop and Turn Posts" adjustment (set to no) and the "Multiball Posts" adjustment (also set to no). Director's Cut sets both of these to No IIRC. You need at least version 1.08. Both adjustments are in the mid-upper 30s.

Actually the game was originally designed without the gate; the gate was a late addition to get the ball in the bumpers more for casual players. Therefore, you can rest assured that the software handles the missing gate perfectly fine. The benefit to removing the gate (other than the added flow) is that your chip trick multipliers will rise (assuming you make the full orbit) and making a full orbit will (re)light the right-side chip tricks. Also, full orbits count as "previous shots" so the chip trick value on your next shot goes up double (as opposed to going up single values when lit from only an inlane).

This might actually be kind of confusing so let me explain it better: Each chip trick adds a certain amount to the trick value (25-50K depending on shot difficulty... I think left orbit is probably easiest so it adds 25K to chip trick value, and the hardest is considered the bumper popper which adds 50K). If the ball is bouncing around and goes down an inlane, then any lit chip trick will increase the value by this single amount. If you made a shot first that results in lighting chip tricks (regardless of whether the shot made scored a chip trick or not), then any made chip trick will add 2x the amount to the value (so right orbit->bumper popper cause the popper to add 100K to the value). Consecutive chip tricks increase the multiplier. Draining from the upper playfield does count as a "previous shot" in terms of the next shot adding 2x. Also, if you make the right ramp chip trick and then let the ball drain immediately instead of using the upper flippers, then your current trick multiplier will stay intact. It's probably pretty rare you would want to do this, but it is possible for the chip trick value to get quite high, so it could be to your advantage at some point.