My plan regarding stepping up to NL10 is exactly what you mention in your 2nd paragraph. I know that having only 20 buyins is way to agressive, especially as I am 6tabling. So I plan to mix in one very juicy looking NL10 table into 5 NL4 tables. I do this because I need some time in order to get used to the much higher amounts of money in play (2,5 times as much) A normal 3bet at NL10 looks like a massive 4bet at NL4.
reviewing my NL10 hands from this afternoon showed me that this could become a huge problem. I was sooooo intimidated by those higher amounts and afraid of losing money that I did not play well (foldet AK to a squeez, because I was to afraid to squeez myselfe in the first place)
from what I have seen the playerpool is exactly the same. so I am not really afraid that I cant deal whith the level skillwise. But mentally this is another story and thats the reason why I prefer the tiptoe aproach.
I do not get hung up on a particular stake lvl. Although I consider stake lvls like football league lvls I play what my skill lvl and bankroll allow. I have the feeling that I beat NL4 now and I just want to face a new challenge. I am definitly not trying to force it and i have shown in the past that i am not too proud to demote myselfe to a lower lvl if my bankroll becomes to small.
regarding my redline: I do not get annoyed with it as much as I used to. Changing the poker site showed me how much the red line is depended on the playerpool. Bet365 had sooooo many unbluffable fish, that the red line had to be massivly negativ. Betfair has fewer fish but more nits.
In the bigger picture I tend to be way to passive when I am not fully focussed on the game. Therefor a rapidly downwards sloping red line shows me that in this paritcular session I did not fight for my pots enough and played to much fit or fold. As long as my green is steadily running upwards I am fine though