what about for those that dont have nice flat water to kite in? Is anyone kiting regularly in the surf in under 10kts? for me in winter I wont even consider going out unless its 15kts+ due to the huge currents and surf that comes along with southerlys

Mini mals don't work as ultra-light wind boards. They tend to drift away while you are stuffing around trying to water start amd they don't give much better bottom end. In such light winds you are working to fly the kite so the distraction of trying to handle the board is way too difficult. (BTW. I learned to kiteboard on an 9' mal and a 4m foil.) If there is enough wind for the kite to fly easily then there is enough wind to get going with a decent sized twin-tip.

A better solution is a wide flat board with no rocker. My plywood twintip works extremely well in light winds. The straps, narrow edges and lack of buoyancy means you can water start easily and the width gives you plenty of planing area to get going and build apparent wind. 47-50cm wide is ideal with the footstraps on the centreline. Length is pretty much irrelevant for light wind riding but if it is too short then you will have problems with the nose digging into chop.

The Underground FLX 152x44 is not a light wind board. It is a mid-wind board for big guys. It doesn't plane particularly early. It does handle very well and doesn't feel as big as it is. Underground are planning on bringing out a light wind board which will be flat and wide. I think it is a 148x47.

Big foils work ok in light wind but it is an acquired skill to keep them in the air. They need to be flown with speed and tend to get stuck at the edge of the window. It is possible to do stall turns where you stall the kite at the edge of the window and spin it and send it straight through the window. You get a big blast of power and the kite flies up with enough power to get the next turn in. Once you build apparent wind you are off and riding.

The Rhino 2 20m is the master kite for light wind grunt but it had minimal top end. You go from struggling to keep it flying to nicely powered to overpowered in just a few knots.

A much better lightwind solution is a mid-sized bow kite and a flat-wide board. The kite is nimble and easy to fly so you can whip it around and get good power and ha a heap of range so you are not overpowered once you are up and riding.

There is some talk about short-wide directionals for light wind. 150-160 long and 48cm wide with 3 surf style fins and no tail rocker. Apparently they work well riding off the fins. My feeling is that fins cause drag and make things slow so we will have to wait and see on these. We have not had much luck revisiting old 4-fin directionals in light wind.

I agree that 8 knots is about the minimum you can ride in but if you have 8-10 dropping down to 6 and puffing up to 12 you can have great fun riding with the right gear and technique. My mate and I have had some magic sessions in light wind when other people did not even bother coming to the beach. Blasting along fully locked in on glassy water with a nice rooster tail coming off the board is a hoot!