I guess I need to read more, but I don't see how the thermostat really affects any of this much. The inner metal line on the driver's side (the short external loopback on the right of the diagram) could be necessary when the T-stat is closed, maybe, but the rest I wouldn't think. The throttle body lines are too small diameter to matter much, so we can pretty much ignore those. The flow through the heater core would normally be blocked off anyways (when the heater is off).
If anything, I worry about negative effects from putting a straight bypass in place of the heater core. By doing that, your coolant flow is now permanently in "the heater is on" mode, which allows a certain amount of flow to skip the radiator by circulating through the heater core line (which flows even better than it did before - no complex routing, just your bypass hose).
What horrible thing would happen if all the red lines in my diagram were blocked off and the T-stat wasn't open (yet)? I mean, the engine's cold then anyways, is it just that the water can't flow (within the engine) at all?
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