I wish I had seen this thread sooner but it was still a great read. I’m not doing anything with figs, but I tried my had at T-budding for the first time last Monday. In my case it was with crabapple. I started crabs from seed last spring, grew them in air pruning containers, and planted them last fall. This spring I tried dormant grafting a few with domestic apple scions. Only one took. I did not remove the foliage and I doubt the young root system had enough energy to support the natural growth already abundant and push the scions. I was probably lucky with the one that took. When you grow crabs from seed, you get a very vigorous tree but there is no guarantee of the fruiting characteristics. So, on Monday I tried my hand at T-Budding. I left one branch to become the central leader the T-Budding fails and left some branches below the graft to support the tree through the summer. Here is a picture
Time will tell how they do. Your thread gave me confidence I was headed in the right direction.