OK, I figured out my last question on the alternating outcomes for the “TryGetPawnOwner” - when you have the editor of the Animation blueprint open in the background, it seems to still receive input somehow, but it does not get a valid object reference. This is what causes the alternations in the cast-ok and cast-failed outputs.
See the screen below, now it works correctly. So my screenshots above could possibly serve as an help to set it up correctly.
