1.
I'm looking more strongly at WLP800/838, wlp028 or nottingham. (all cerevisiae, not lagers)
I'm one of those nottingham haters from an awful experience, but that was very early on in my brewing and more than a decade ago. It's also cheap and easy(dry yeast), so might give it a go.
2.
at those who were suggesting S-05/WLP001 etc, so how did it attenuate at those sub 50 temps? Did you do a d-rest or bring the temp up later?
3.
after reading a fair bit about these and other yeasts, i think a key thing missing in my initial query is the pitch rate. reading about people using these yeasts and others, if its the "right" yeast for a cold temp and its an insufficient pitch there will be problems. i would bet that many yeasts with a higher pitch rate (the lager "double" starter size or 2packs of dry) would do sufficiently well at cold temps.
4. now considering the pitch rate increase concept, maybe i'll try the windsor/nottingham combination and see how that goes.