Hi. Just my take on your questions:
What exactly about getting into alpha is giving you trouble? If you find that it's difficult to enter a relaxed state of mind, you might want to just follow your breathing with your mind for a few moments before doing the 3-2-1 technique. You will probably find that it slows down and you become more relaxed. Also, doing the 3-2-1 lying down helps. Don't worry too much about "getting there", though, as this brings you back to beta. Just don't worry. Act as though you are there, and eventually you will be. You might want to loosen tight clothing before going into alpha.
The tangerine helps with peripheral vision and activates your brain for information processing. To see its effect, try doing some reading before and after you use the tangerine. I think you'll find a difference. If you don't think the tangerine's doing much for you, you can try imagining that you're peering over your own head when you photoread.
A good flip rate is whatever is comfortable for you. The other than conscious mind can pick up the information as fast as we can flip, so that's no worry. Turning one page for every syllable of the chant is one good way of doing it. (Personally, when I really get into it, I turn two pages for every syllable.) Keeping your breathing deep and even during the PR step helps you remain in a relaxed state.
If you want to photoread just a chapter or two, the standard recommendation is that you photoread starting from the chapter before the one you want and ending one chapter after the last one you want. This way, you "sandwich" the sections you want with a chapter each.
Hope this helps.
KWLee
