When I was standing across from Chris, I was actually far more focused than I ever thought I'd be. The producers, and particularly the producer assigned to me, were great at making sure I was prepared before going out on stage. Having Jason Block as my Plus One was also very valuable to me. He's a great guy and he was a wonderful coach, and who better than someone who has done it before, and done it well?
Except for hearing the cheers, you almost forget the audience is even there during each question. The way the lighting is situated, along with the haze in the room, you can barely see shadows of people in the audience, but no faces are distinguishable. I don't remember if there was any mumbling going on. If there was, I didn't hear it. I really feel like when I stopped talking, you could hear a pin drop.
I wasn't terribly worried about how I would come across on TV. The producers promised that if we said or did anything too awkward, they would edit around it. They said their job was to make us look as good as possible, and I'd say they do a damn good job of it. Of course, I braced myself for the friendly ribbing I knew I'd get from friends and family over the questions I didn't know, but I embrace that as part of the experience.
I don't know if I would have done better or worse on Shuffle. On the one hand, Shuffle made it easier to slop in to big money quickly. You could blow out all the lifelines early and walk away on question three, but if you got a good draw on the values, you could be walking with $20,000. On the other hand, getting any question wrong in round one means only $1,000. A far cry from $5,000, and if you traveled to be there, your trip would be in the red.
All in all, I'll echo the sentiments of the previous posters in this thread. No regrets at all.