I enjoyed reading your post.

]Anne & Charles Musgrove. ...Yet Anne didn't even bother to ask LR's opinion this time. What would contemporary readers think? Would they admire her constancy to FW's memory or condemn her for not making the practical choice?

I admire Anne. I'm glad Anne was not persuaded by Lady Russell to marry Charles Musgrove. True, she was persuaded to end her engagement to Captain Wentworth, but she was also thinking of him, not just herself. But it was not a merely selfish caution, under which she acted, in putting an end to it. Had she not imagined herself consulting his good, even more than her own, she could hardly have given him up.[Chapter iv] But with Charles Musgrove, it was different. And I think Anne did right to refuse him, because she did not love him.

]Mary & Charles Musgrove. Imagine knowing you were your husband's second choice after your sister turned him down.