To the west it is clear but there is a path with pedestrians from time to time. I’m not sure if they’d be happy to receive an AWES in the face or serve as a roast beef cut by the tether, unless super-advanced software prevents that. Let’s be a little realistic.
Your message is representative of the way of understanding AWE that we see in scientific circles and startups: the search for efficiency by kite area. Even your method of calculating tether drag fits into this perspective, when it could also, if not in the first place, be used as a basis for an evaluation of the power / space use ratio, which in this case would help me to know the maximum AWE power that I could put in my garden.
This second approach by power/space use is excluded from the circles I just mentioned. However, scientific studies could refine what would be the possible secondary uses according to the angle of elevation, the speed and the weight of the whole, the length of the tether… A draft has even been sketched, but it is nothing compared to what could be done in this area.
Now, a third (or a first by changing priorities) approach is considering the real wind energy. @dougselsam often and rightly compares the regular and safe working of a wind turbine with random AWE operation and for very short contiguous periods, rightly invoking the lack of knowledge about wind energy. He can explains it far better than me. For what I know there are more experts in aerospace than in wind energy, with the notable exception of Dr. Fort Felker in Makani.
It is the time to investigate these two other fields instead of confining oneself indefinitely to a search for illusory efficiency.