One big difference between MM and the others you've mentioned, is that MM has pretty linear scoring. Your score is tied much more closely to how long your game lasts, rather than if you happened to stack multiple crazy scoring features at once (6x + loopin supers, or PKE, or We Came We Saw, etc).

What is the feed like from the swamp, and do you regularly get control from it, or do you fling the ball away on the fly?

This is good. If you can almost always get it under control, then doing castles all day is the best strategy for high scores. In tournament play, it's rare to see anything else.

This is probably true of a lot of games. Eventually you'll miss and hit a post at the mouth of a ramp, which can be deadly. Can you hold up a flipper to transfer a ball moving quickly down the inlane over to the other flipper? I often do this from left to right on MM.

I (almost always) refuse to shoot the castle from the right flipper when the drawbridge is down because I've had too many STDM returns. Can you post past reliably and shoot it from the left? I find the return is much, much safer that way.