As for starting holding the gun, I do feel that stock on belt, muzzle downrange is a reasonable alternative to a draw. I would even be ok with adding that weak hand be relaxed at side.
It's a "reasonable alternative," but it is absolutely faster and more consistent. I've seen a few GM-level PCC shooters with lasers on their guns actually take a shot at steel (and hit it) on the way from the belt to the shoulder. But, mainly, there's no such thing as "missing the grip" on the draw. All of us who are handgun shooters have shot stages where we didn't get our grip right on the draw, and either shot the stage with a janky grip or took time to fix it before firing the first shot. If we could start with even our strong hand
on the gun in the holster, we'd never miss our grip again (at least with the strong hand). But,
by rule, this is considered an unsafe(!?!) starting position and cannot ever be allowed in the stage briefing. Ever.
In designing stages, I often have PCC shooters start with their
strong hand dangling, while holding the barrel with their weak hand and stock on belt. That is a much better approximation of a downrange, loaded, relaxed-at-sides start position. That provides a similar level of challenge to the PCC shooters. But, again, many PCC shooters get triggered by this, and will say there is something "illegal" about it, even though it is clearly legal and has been blessed by DNROI. Once again, USPSA set expectations among PCC shooters when they thoughtlessly adopted PCC classifier start positions that were so radically different from all other divisions.
We're drifting pretty far from the OP's topic... actually,
really far. I find the PCC discussion interesting. Maybe we should start a new thread.