I think you are overestimating the difficulties and underestimating the value of Spice simulations. True, simulations can lie, but you will be testing your circuit at low power and you can obtain some confidence in your spice simulation by verifying that it predicts the low power operation of your circuit, then simulate full power, then build the full power version.
This would be easier with a digital or storage scope in the situation where you are producing only a single event. In the old days before the invention of digital and storage scopes we used Polaroid oscilloscope cameras to capture single shots; they mounted on the scope faceplate with an adapter that excluded room light. The shutter was opened, the event being observed fired and the scope triggered from it, camera shutter closed and then film developed. I don't know if any cheap digital cameras have a time exposure mode, but if so you could rig one up to do this.
But for low power testing you just repeat the event at some regular rate and trigger on it.
Of course a Spice simulation lets you "scope" any current or voltage in the circuit, and tweak until you like the results. No parts need to be replaced when their ratings are exceeded either.
No, I missed it, I mostly just scan subject lines and read a few messages on interesting topics, like welding. (I paid for a good part of my engineering degree by pushing puddles of metal around.) I trust you have a means for adjusting phase overlap? Why not simulate your working circuit to gain some experience and confidence in Spice?
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OT - a spice story:
A few years ago, when DOS 3.2 was mickeysofts latest and greatest, I bought the "free" student version of PSpice (with the $100 manual, good luck using it without the manual). Entirely text based, no schematic capture, much harder to use than LTSpice. Right after I read the manual a Co-Op student walked into my office and complained that a customer had provided an erroneous schematic for an overtemperature shutdown board they wanted us to reproduce since the OEM was out of business and their stock system was out of them. The student had figured out what was wrong with their schematic and fixed it, but the customer refused to accept the change, insisting that they had provided a certified drawing which could not be wrong, we must have made a mistake and we should fix our mistake not change the drawing. The student wanted me to call the customer and straighten him out, but instead I handed him my copy of PSpice and told him to simulate the circuit both ways. The customer dosen't accept the evidence, provide him with more evidence. "SPICE" he complained, "I don't know SPICE! I can't do that!" Sure you can, I said, providing a
5-minute tutorial, and instructing him to try out all of the available reports.The next day he returned with an inch thick dot-matrix printout on wide paper, which exactly duplicated both his pencil and paper analysis and the actual circuit operation. After I convinced him that rolling up the printout and beating the customer severely about the head and shoulders with it could be bad for repeat business, he sent the printout to the customer, with circles, arrows and post-it notes identifying the important parts. The customer then accepted the change and agreed to pay for it.
Next time I saw the customer I asked if he had changed his drawing. "Are you KIDDING? Do you know how hard it is to change a CERTIFIED DRAWING? I don't have that kind of time!" was his unsuprising response. But the Co-Op student gained some valuable experience, and has been a Spice advocate ever since.
Try it, you'll like it :-).