[Sailor Steve]

Von Spee represents a whole bunch of scenarios I've always wanted to game on the tabletop; and you mention several of the reasons why.

1) I wanted to game Coronel with Canopus present, just to find out if the speculations were true (and they probably were). Of course it would have to be realistic: For Spee the conditions are daylight, while for Craddock it's a night fight.

2) I wanted to game Coronel in broad daylight and calm seas, with and without Canopus.

3) What indeed if Spee had had the prescience to attack Beatty's battlecruisers while they were coaling.

Of course if Spee had resisted the temptation to raid the Falklands he would have been sailing home safely to Germany while the British hunted fruitlessly in the Pacific.

As for the "rising smoke", Spee also had the disadvantage of not being there himself - he only had the panicked report of his second-in-command after the latter had been shelled by Canopus. "Tripod masts! Heavy shells!"