Changes I made:
Mashed in (accidentally albeit) with much more sparge water than usual.
Used a drill powered paint stirrer to mix it all up - took around 20 secs!
Mashed for 1 hr then vigorously re-stirred the grains by hand for a good 30 secs
Connected my pump and re-circulated (highest capacity I could get away with) for the remaining 30 mins of the mash - Temp had fallen from 67c to 60c over that last 30 mins. However, I reckon pipe insulation around the pvc hosing would lessen this.
When fly sparging, I drained off much quicker than usual
So, by speeding things up and by not treating everything so delicately, my brewery has performed much better!
Will use the same methods next Sat again to see if I get similar results.