Jennifer,
    I hesitate to add to your very thorough assessment of the baby and what you are doing with this breastfeeding dyad.  The mother is lucky to have your skilled support.  This is a situation that I've been grumbling for a while, where there needs to be some research done, i.e. on babies who seem to have more than just a deficit in tongue function, with other factors, too, sometimes very, very subtle.
   Just two ponts I thought of.  1) Have you tried the technique that has been round for decades but is now called "Dancer's hand"?  This may help keep the baby on and maximise the maintenance of the latch. 2) You've already mentioned you don't want to introduce a bottle, and I think you are right - especially as the mother has a large, very soft breast.  I notice that babies whose mothers have large, very soft breasts and who have been given a bottle (with a ready-formed 'teat') often don't seem to have a clue how to draw the mother's soft breast into their mouths teh way they need to.  They are used to having everything pre-formed and are hard to convince otherwise, especially if the teat is long-ish.  They look at Mum as if what she is offering is fake.  (The ones I see tend to have Celtic ancestry, which is typical of about one-third of Australians.  Maybe this is coincidence?)  This is just personal observation.
    With the low palate, does the mother have macerated nipples?  I had a client some time ago whose baby had a really low, flat palate.  The mother presented with damaged nipples (ouch!) and a very supportive husband.  The three of us - myself, the mother and the father - worked together to find a position to facilitate a painfree latch, that *also* didn't need four or five hands!  Once they could see what we needed to achieve, which was initially done with the baby upright between the mother's knees (needing extra hands), they went home to do some 'homework' on it.  Overnight they developed a variation that achieved the goals (painfree, affective latch) and could be done by the mother herself.  I remember this case particularly because was a lovely collaborative effort.  I like to quote this to show that we 'experts' don't always have all the answers, but can see what needs to be achieved and can then work with motivated parents to find a way that is do-able for them.
    Whether this Mum continues or not, Jennifer,  I think you can congratulate yourself on the work you have done with her thus far. 
          Virginia
           in oppressively hot Brisbane.

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