Stallion Free said:
I appreciate your Blizzard-like thoroughness here.
I'll take that as a compliment! =D
On a tater topic, I got my second tater legitimately (used that short song for the first audiosurf potato) by playing the device has been modified. Took me hours to do it on easy pointman, because like other people pointed out, it's really up to chance how many companion cubes the game decides to put in your level. I finally became pretty comfortable with getting reasonable combos with the normal blocks, mostly doing only orange or only blue as the part of the level dictated, and trying to get 70000 or more points by the time the music goes back to the slow part 3/4 through the game.
If you get 70000-90000 by that slow part, and a bunch of companion cubes in the fast end part (I went for only cubes, blues, and lightning bolts), you have a chance at 180000 for the potato. I would have fallen short yet again but the very last block was another cube for me.
And make sure you get the clean finish bonus since that's like 30000 points alone.