On seating rings, I'm not a mechanic but I've built and rebuilt over a dozen engines of various types over the past 40 years for myself and friends. A trick I've used on my personal engines several times is to wipe all the oil possible from the cylinder walls After the rotating assembly is together just before bolting the heads on.
Obviously the cylinder walls and pistons/rings are oiled to aid in assembly and to prevent the cylinder walls from flash rusting. When the cylinder walls are wiped down just prior to installing the heads, the rings have (everytime) seated immediately on start up.
Obviously there's still oil in the crosshatch of the cylinder walls and behind the piston rings so it's not a true dry, high friction situation on startup. Also I would not do this on a engine that might set several weeks before first start.
Flame away
Added in edit; I do believe in and still do something similar to what HRL suggested, my procedure is to accelerate in high gear from 40 to 50, let it coast down to 40, then 40 to 60, coast down to 40, a few times as part of the break-in procedure. Can't say where/when I picked this tidbit up. It was a long time ago and made sense when I read it wayback them, always seemed to be worth the little bit of time it takes.
