re: strings alt strums etc
so i totes forgot this feature existed in vital because i hardly use it because i'm a musical control freak:

this random afaik/iirc is a random value that resets per-note-on ; you can remap it onto whatever as a switch i suppose to give an alternating modulation as opposed to a "random" lfo or stepper.

i'm doing the thing and it just reminded me of your post since it's applicable