On the issue of "top" vs "bottom" supering...

> I found an old article by Townsend where they showed that it didn't make any difference and under-supering is way more work. 

There is verification of the stance that it "makes no difference" in two different legit field trials by credentialed researchers using valid statistical methods that I know of, and I'll wager several more can be found in PhD and master's theses of which I am unaware:

The first is a 1994 ABJ article that I do not have in pdf.  All I have is the summary below:

Szabo, T. I. and Sporns, R 
A comparison of top and bottom supering on honey quantity and quality. ABJ (1994) 134 (10) 695-696 
During a major honey flow in Alberta, Canada. 36 honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies each had nine honey supers added in different ways: top-supering (supers added above any previously on the hive) with honey removed, one, two or three times: and bottom-supering (empty honey supers added below those previously on the hive, nearest the brood nest) with honey removed twice. There was no significant difference in any of the parameters measured： honey production (76.8-102.4 kg), honey water content (16.1-17.4%) or diastase level (24.1-27.2). This experiment suggests that the less labour-intensive method of top-supering can be used without affecting beekeepers' incomes. Department of Environmental Biology. University of Guelph, Guelph. Ontario, Canada.
 
The second is attached, by Keith Delaplane and Jen Berry (who now makes whisky with her husband - see http://soswhiskey.com, but is still teaching beekeeping courses at UGA)

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