To be honest, I rarely fish for redfish. I live in Miami where I fish for bonefish in Biscayne bay. However, I plan on fishing for redfish a lot more in my future. My parents are retiring in St. Augustine, FL which has a great redfish fishery. I have been kayaking for redfish in the area and I realized that the oyster bars would destroy a fiberglass boat. To have a good boat for the St. Augustine area my dad and I are considering modifying an aluminum skiff. I stumbled across this website and have found it very informative. However, we are at least a year away from starting this project.
In referece to the poling questions, you can certainly fish the flats with a trolling motor but poling gives you a big advantage in my opinion. Bonefish (and maybe redfish also) frequently change directions or can pop-up out of nowwhere. Poling gives you the ability to suddenly stop, spin the boat, or sprint after the fish. As previously mentioned, I do think that a trolling motor would hit bottom on some of the flats that I fish.
Specknreds, can you take steps to dampen the hull slap and noise from an aluminum boat? I was looking into a modified-V hull and maybe carpeting the deck. Maybe that will help?