For anyone aiming to refine launch technique, here are plots of two of my launches:
* due East launch from Vandenberg (course 90 deg) with no payload and super-lightweight tank
* due East launch from Vandenberg (course 90 deg) with full payload and standard-weight tank
Altitude as function of time:
Intertial velocity as function of time (note that due to the rotation of the planet, this starts with a non-zero value):
The main difference is that with a full payload, altitude management is actually easier - the push of the SRBs doesn't go quite as far up, so the trajectory can be managed to capture the desired altitude of 135 km early on and from that point vertical velocity is managed to be close to zero.
No need to run the tank dry on either of those launches - the heavy one left me 33.000 lb of propellant at MECO. Which is to say that it is possible to lug a payload into a higher eccentricity as well.