It turns out that once the synaptics driver is working, there are many configurable options available. See the synaptics man page. I did a little tweaking and I’ll be test driving the edge-scrolling capabilities. I also tweaked the pointer motion- that would be MaxSpeed, MinSpeed and AccelFactor. The motion is a little easier to deal with now. Use synclient (man synclient) to tinker with settings live.
Still keeping an eye out for lost tap detection as noted earlier. No problems so far.