Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm not making any headway (perhaps I'm incompetent). Can't find stitch by rings anywhere, unless I'm misinterpreting what that means.
I assume you want nice straight UVs - in which case you want to unitize, stitch by rings and then unfold in one axis rather than both. That said, there are better ways to unwrap a strip now that maya has partially worked its way out of the 1990s - try using straighten on what you have there