I'm glad to hear you've sorted out your tricopter! Yeah, what a lot of people forget with these things is that they aren't the same as fixed wing craft with more elementary electronics. You actually have a flight computer onboard and it's trying to stabilize flight for you. One needs to test the input commands result in behavior that you'd expect and also test that external influences/un-commanded forces on the airframe results in the opposite to counter the external forces.
Similarly, I think a lot of people who come from fixed wing or even heli RC, thinks they can just program their TX, taking advantage of expo, curves, etc, and think their computer driven controllers allow, forgetting that this actually works against them for better flight characteristics. All the programming and configuration should be on the flight controller for multirotors, including rates, expo, servo reversals, etc.
With multirotors, you're essentially using your TX to issue a command, and the flight controller software will try to do what you want it to do, with full control over all the motors, servos, etc.
Similarly, I think a lot of people who come from fixed wing or even heli RC, thinks they can just program their TX, taking advantage of expo, curves, etc, and think their computer driven controllers allow, forgetting that this actually works against them for better flight characteristics. All the programming and configuration should be on the flight controller for multirotors, including rates, expo, servo reversals, etc.
With multirotors, you're essentially using your TX to issue a command, and the flight controller software will try to do what you want it to do, with full control over all the motors, servos, etc.