What a fascinating thread - I think it's worth another Bump
I've played with macro quite a bit over the years and collected loads of different options, (though my shots are not up to the standard of most of those in the thread)
Recently I've mainly been lazy just using either a 100mm Cosina macro, or a stacked 50mm f/1.7 on either the macro of kit lens Lighting being either with the pop up flash diffused by tissue ( or Cigarette papers) or with a TTL flash bounced of a sheet of card. The bounce flash was used in both the macro images I've put in the gallery so far.
The only real experiments I've done recently have been using telescope eyepieces stacked with the kit lens I plan to try them on their own soon - as I've got a helicoid focuser for them rigged up. The stacked eyepieces have had some success (the Knot macro I've posted was using a 40mm eyepiece) The 10mm eyepiece was less successful the image was so dark the only thing I could manage to focus was a lightshade & the eyepiece was bumping into the shade...