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I have a Paragon Fire Fly kiln. It has side elements only. From my reading it appears that a side element kiln should be ramped slower than a top element kiln, is this correct?
Yes

This kiln is brick lined and very small so it retains a lot of heat. Is there anything about this configuration I should consider when figuring my fusing schedules?
Yes. Fire much slower on the way up than in a glass kiln, maybe as much as half as fast. Some experimentation will be necessary. Cooling should be easier for the size of items you fire. You may be able to simply turn the kiln off after a soak at the annealing temperature. Again, experimentation will be required. You need to get light polarising filters to check the stresses in the glass to determine which of your experiments give you glass with acceptable stress.

Also, because the kiln is small with a 7 " shelf, its tempting to consider slightly larger mold sizes laid on the digonal. Should I reconsider this idea? For example, the diagonal measurement is just over 9 inches. Allowing space aound an oval mold, for example, I might be able to use an 8" mold. Is this just a bad idea?
Not a bad idea, just one that needs thinking about. The closer the glass is to the elements, the more you need to consider baffling the heat from the edge of the glass to avoid dearly sealing of the edges during fusing, or very uneven heating of the glass on the mould during the forming.

Suzette A wrote:Thanks for the tip about the polarizing lenses. I checked bullseye but they are out of stock. Will this work?

http://www.amazon.com/Polarizing-Film-S ... izing+film