Holy Fecomancy!  Those filled up fast!  Sadly I was slow on the draw, because I was really curious to see how you were handling a living campaign.  Ah well.

I'm running 3 sessions of AW throughout the weekend, maybe it's some of you same folks?

I had the good fortune of playing in one of Vincent's games at Pax Prime.  He did just what he said above, although we did have a Hardholder, and our second session was essentially a day of holding court, and was so PvP driven that I don't think Fronts even came into it (not that it needed them - we had a blast making our own mess!)  The bittersweetness of a con game is always that you won't get to continue the story you started (although you can certainly import pieces to a home game).

Vincent, can you comment on why you include or remove certain playbooks?  I'm planning on running some games at OrcCon, and I was considering removing:

Angel:  Having healing readily available takes the pressure off.  If I do include this, I'll probably reduce the starting Stock.
Driver:  The increased mobility is a bit much for a starter game - I like to keep things on the home front for a bit.  I'd rather not deal with Vehicle rules every game.  On the other hand, it's pretty iconic for certain settings.
Hardholder:  Between detailing the holding and their starting move, pretty much plot in a bottle.  The danger is that they may overshadow the game.
Hoarder:  Trends toward playing defensively, and having lots of Barter or Crap available takes pressure off.  If I do include, I'll start with higher Hunger.
Quarantine:  Exploring causes of the apocalypse just doesn't feel urgent when you know you only have two sessions.  They're not conceptually right for every game either.

Wondering specifically why no Battlebabe, which I consider iconic and a good "stir the pot" playbook.

Foxit Reader is another great program for reading and saving form fillable pdfs.  I haven't used it to create sheets, however.

The Brainer resets Hx with my Hoarder, Burns.  Burns is, as you might expect, an old dude.  So I whisper to the Brainer that Burns has a pacemaker.  Not two shakes later, the Gunlugger hits me with a tazer.  Good times.

I don't have experience introducing new players with AW, but, I think it would be a great introductory system.  The rules are simple, so you don't have to worry about rules lawyering or decision-paralysis.  Everything is based on the narrative.  If they buy into that, it's smooth sailing.

1 - Prompt them.  New players may be hesitant.  Fortunately, AW requires you to prompt players anyway, so it won't stick out.  Start with character gen.  After Hx is established, just ask each character a few questions.  "Why don't you trust Angels?  Tell me about the time you found love, and lost it.  Tell me about how you got that scar."  Once game starts. put them in a spot and just ask "What do you do?"

2 - Barth Forth.  New players will feel like they're out of place unless they really understand the game world.  Barth forth at every opportunity, and give the players chances to do the same by asking them questions.  Let them own the game world by helping creating it.

3 - Don't plan.  Really, don't.  I know how you feel, because this is what I'm guilty of with every other game I've ever run apart from AW.  Trust the rules - they're written the way they are for a reason.  Just hand out playbooks, do character gen as written, and follow the First Session rules.  If you feel that you must must must do homework, just reread the basic moves and MC moves.

You don't gain Hx for helping or interfering - but in order to help or interfere, you roll +Hx, which I believe is why the playbook mentions it there.

You may be thinking of the rule that inflicting harm on another PC causes them to gain Hx with you, and healing another PC grants you Hx with them.