I think your machine will be ideal for the type of coils you are going to be winding. I had never even seen a coil winding machine before let alone the tensioning mechanism and all searching I did when I built mine just showed up pictures of machines but no close ups.
I have found I dont really need any tensioning other than the weight of the spool of wire unwinding, however on the heavier copper I found it needed to be straightened a bit so I made up a series of three rollers which the wire loops round and thus it gets straightened, you can see this in the pic above. The link you sent to the tensioner however does look interesting and I will have a good look at it shortly
When I was experimenting with the small coil shown above I wound onto a 0.5mm drill bit and then slipped off onto the Mu core, was too fiddly so thats when I decided to mount the slaved stepper so I could hold the Mu in tension.
That programme does indeed look like it will be handy, will certainly save you making up a screen with the VB in the button as you can just make and load the code.
Hood