The real take away here is always report your altitude and climb instructions on departure for an easy and smooth experience. 

I am struggling to understand the configuration file structure and workflow in using them.

Welcome to the club.

Congrats.

The only understandable reason to use it as an excuse is if they're unfamiliar or uncertain of how to provide services or instructions or clearances outside of radar coverage. Otherwise they're acting in bad faith. I'm not sure which is more likely, probably the former if anything I'd hope.

I don't see ground movement or clearance delivery as something one would typically refer to as "non radar" though. Non radar to me describes things involving airborne or soon to be airborne aircraft without radar service. The glossary in the 7110.65 seems to agree. One doesn't even need to use top down mode to issue taxi instructions so its hard to see it as an excuse to not do top down tower cab service at least prior to departure even if somehow the people in question were unaware they had that feature in vERAM.

F.) Be aware of your own limits. Ask for help, or an extra set of eyes to help you scan if your feeling “pushed”. If necessary don’t be afraid to tell a pilot, “unable”. Use hand off’s instead of point outs, or allow another controller to coordinate for you, to lessen your workload.

D.) When particularly busy it is just as important to “control the frequencies” as it is to control the planes. Be confident, concise, and quick with transmissions. As you’re making one transmission, prepare the next one and go right to it before another pilot can break in.

These two things are so important to me on VATSIM when it gets busy. Hitting that personal growth moment when you realize no matter how adept you think you are sometimes you need to get some extra eyes or split off an entire sector to make you do a better job. And controlling the freq with VATSIM pilots especially is key. I find myself anticipating the delay due to the codec by keying up a half second before the readback is done.

This video's influence on my own virtual education in terminal radar has ensured that I will be applying one day to visit Seattle Center if only to be able to say "170 to SODOE" on freq.

With respect to the Bailout Tools DX mentioned this really is a masterclass in using the whole toolbox. My two favourites are using the Husky Stadium visual approach when a pilot can't pick up the traffic but sees the stadium and in another case changing a heavy that's following a Brasilia to the left side runway because it became clear they wouldn't have adequate spacing to the threshold. This way as long as the Heavy doesn't overrun the lighter aircraft with visual sep in place he's maintained his sequence. This video really made me love doing plane to plane. Also I think the way he speaks really influenced my own speaking on freq. Its so strong and crisp and clear and the speed is so measured. Its so important to be that way when you're rattling off even the partial PTAC with speeds and visual sep in there. I know that over time I've noticed I've had less and less issue with pilot comprehension even when giving relatively verbose clearances.

Also note that even he makes errors. There's a point where he transposes the callsign for two similar numbered Empire flights. Even the masters aren't perfect.

Change 1 is already out!

Strangely I've always given my taxi instructions this way just because of VATSIM pilots being exceptional at hearing what they want to hear and ignoring the rest, that and runway crossings at MSP (the only place I've ever really done anything) tend to involve a transfer of control to tower when they're departing. I witnessed 2 runway incursions a couple events ago when I had the luxury of monitoring without having a fixed role at the start of the event and the full taxi instructions past the hold short seemed to encourage not holding short.

I also noticed that it wasn't 1300 feet between centrelines until 7110.65X, as the W only says 1000 feet. I wonder if that means I can use Delta at MSP to give the ole' multi runway crossing instruction now.