Sorry to hear about the Kano bait n switch bro. But yeah what you mentioned is the hardest thing to get the hang of about the character in my personal opinion. Everything else takes judgement but is still pretty straight forward, I mean with a bit of familiarity with the character you'll have no trouble getting hats out all the time, at the end of strings/combos/pressure and in the neutral. The real challenge is, making that Hat worthwhile while its there, and I think it's the least linear aspect of the character. It's something I'm always getting better at slowly myself.
A couple of words on making the traps worthwhile:
Make your opponent fear them. Be erratic with them. Put them out and call them straight back even if you KNOW they will block it. Let them know it's always a threat, and just the effect it can have on their playstyle alone can make your Hat's worthwhile alone. Even if they never get caught by the traps and their only effect is just making them block when they wouldn't otherwise be, abuse this by running in with our amazing pressure or throw. Also, don't get disheartened by getting poked out of your traps. It's all part of the neutral, and its fine, you lose nothing and immediately get your Spin, Overhead and other hat based moves back instantly.
I honestly find myself using EX-HCB the most, for counter poking into serious 112124 pressure, and also for long range punishes, the gravity on it is AMAZING seriously check that shit u can get like 8 jabs off it in the corner or some shit, other wise I use it for the mix-up game a low hat provides in the corner. The one thing I would say is don't expect it to be some super sweet combo device (although it can be, and it's flashy as hell when it is), I just use it more as a space control. On that note, another thing would be the fullscreen control it gives, the "roundtrip" (throwing it out and immediately calling it back) is deceptively safe, and the start-up animation is deceptively similar to our Mid hitting projectile. Just roundtrippin all day gets you meter, and can get your opponent make the wrong decision.
I always pick Lin Kuei Temple too btw. I feel that the leap interactables allow me to position my Hat call back arc really nicely around wherever the opponent may happen to be. The argument could be made that my opponent can use the leap interactables himself to just get right back out of it, however I feel like as Kung Lao, I really don't mind if my opponents want to be making big ass leaps through the air lol, even if they want to leap away from me and get safe fullscreen, this variation really isn't Tempest or Buzzsaw and doesn't mind it at all, it's basically free meter while threatening full combo off ex-projectile which just got buffed to 35% lol, or combo off teleport if they try an unsafe projectile and you will even have a hat set up midscreen to extend the combo, it's so freaking delicious that it's what I live for lol
I'm going to be updating the guide again sometime next week hopefully, got a bit of stuff I want to add
