Cool, hope you get sorted with a new boat soon! And I hope your Christmas was a good one. 
For sure. When I had my plastic Element I went from no fins, to 2, to 4, then back to 2 for ages and then at the end without. It definitely requires you to be more on the ball without fins but it still carves like a dream with those edges. There are disadvantages and advantages either way. But it's not really a concern, as the production boats will have fin boxes and then the end user can decide for him/herself. Putting on more fins tends to make your bottom turns more drawn out and the boat does not carve as tight an arc, however it won't lose an edge as quickly and this is why I say you need to be on the ball - as in be able to use a stern rudder quickly, and properly. It does, however, help on cutbacks quite a bit as without the stern can slide out pretty quickly.
I purposely went out one day to see how hard I could carve without fins and got a mate to photograph it. This was in my plastic one which I've sold already. Have a look at the sequences at Witsand:
adrian.playak.com/index.php/surf-kayakin...ayaking-in-cape-town
Check this one, from that article anyway:
No fins...
Or check this, trying to get the edge to bust out, but it makes it. Anyway, fins are pretty cool and if I get a boat with the fins boxes I may go back to using 2 fins again. Although I am enjoying the ultra looseness of going without. Just by the way, you can still flat spin the Element easily even with 4 of the 100X47 fins.
That cockpit is not small. It's the same size as every other Fluid boat... Have you seen the size of the Riot cockpits?

At 6' I climb in and out no problem. Andrew Pollock, the person who knows the Element the best, is about 6'3", no problems either