WB2WIK
FSK441 etc are very good but sure take a long time to complete a contact.
I complete them much faster on SSB, if there are any good burns to work. SSB MS QSO start-to-finish can take less than 30 seconds, and I don't bother with timing sequences if there are obvious burns to work (I don't think anyone else does, either).
I've also never found it particularly useful to aim the antenna anywhere other than where the other station is actually located. Meteors fall everywhere, every day; during a "shower," there's just a lot more of them. Either an ionized trail will occur along the desired path, or not, but you still have a "desired path."
Obviously, a lot of power and big antennas work better than less and not. Even pretty narrow beams (in the 13-15 dB gain range, or above) illuminate a huge chunk of sky at distance. I doubt I've ever "missed out" on an MS contact for having a beam that was "too big" (meaning, too narrow beamwidth).