Fly it with the pitch trim always, that way it will always be in trim...otherwise if you look away for some reason you will be halfway to the moon when you look back.

Use the FD and autopilot whenever allowed; don't try to be manly and hand-fly the sim when you don't have to. It's not a real airplane and you won't enjoy it.

Regarding staying on the runway after Vr...lots of instructors teach that and even if an examiner is not a fan of the technique you can still get away with it for a second or two. You DO NOT want to be rotating at the same time that you are still dialing in directional control on a V1 cut...too many things to do at once. Get your rudder input set first, then rotate.