You're welcome sphan.
Re: The Rogallo wing - don't forget that the Rogallos were a husband and wife team. The era in which they started out - it was normal for the man to take all the credit, but in reality Gertrude was probably every bit as accomplished a researcher as Francis. Your description isn't bad for first stab, although actually the aeroelastic deformation of the wing is very important once you get to know them well.
Re: SR71 - think vortices.
Re: PhD - having a PhD is certainly a Good Thing, as it is ultimately a research qualification, and those research skills are transferrable to other fields of endeavour. I've noticed over the years that here in the UK employers (except universities) are under-impressed by PhDs as they don't really understand them, whilst in the US employers are over-impressed by PhDs, for much the same reason. Ultimately, you have a set of valuable research skills and should be exploiting those and selling them as part of the package.
Gyroplane stability and control is a complete black art, but I do know a few people who have made a career of studying them. I was drooling over this last weekend at the UK's Flyer show - it's a new design yet to fly. I have a suspicion that it will prove a very poor aircraft, but by god it's beautiful. Gyroplane design and development is actually in the ascendancy, and there have been some very impressive designs over the last decade or so. One of these days I know I'm going to succumb and have a go.
Continued best of luck,
G