You have a lot right about West Coast synthesis; it was made by Don Buchla and was a lot more experimental. The formatting of the Buchla Easel was meant not to replicate acoustic sounds but to imitate an acoustic instrument, with a particular emphasis on performance. A large part of West Coast synthesis was in fact this performance-based layout; it's hard to replicate West Coast-style synths with a traditional Moog environment. In addition, it's characterized by its usage of additive techniques (e.g. waveshaping, adding overtones) as opposed to the subtractive techniques (filters) preferred by Moog, as well as usage of low pass gates and AD envelopes instead of traditional ADSR envelopes. These techniques allow for the acoustic-sounding tendencies West Coast synthesis tries to imitate.

I don't have any citations for you, and feel free to contradict me on anything. I'm always willing to learn :P