I enjoyed reading this piece very much. We ran into an issue with the project we did for Marriott, where we did fewer wireframes than we should have up front, and went into design mode too fast. Ultimately, we went back and did wireframes, which got us back on track.
We also made a clickable prototype. Basically, we took the images from the designs, and then ordered them in a certain way. Clicking anywhere on the image went to the next image in the sequence. This allowed us to go through a user story, and show the client how things would look and work. The client was also able to use the clickable prototype to show the early drafts to target audiences and gather feedback. It was helpful, and it helped build user enthusiasm for the project.