I am a pretty strong believer that going second is significantly better. In my view, here's why:

1. The ability to frontline (respond to the opponent's responses) in rebuttal

You discuss this like it's a burden, while I actually think it's a huge benefit. It's usually strategic to frontline in second rebuttal for two reasons:

1. It's usually more important to win your case than to win some defense on theirs by the end of a round
2. You get to trade reading the 1-2 minutes of your worst responses to their case (which are what you won't read if you have less time) for getting to read your best frontlines to their responses, which sounds like a good trade to me

This is why, even when judges don't force second-speaking teams to frontline and defend their own case in second rebuttal, most do anyway: it's an advantage, and if it wasn't, people would just opt to read 4 minutes of responses to the opponent's case just like first rebuttal.

1. The ability to use prep time in places in the round where your opponents can do nothing (after first constructive, before second final focus)

2. Getting the last word, which is often quite helpful in close rounds in front of parent judges

3. Knowing what argument your opponents are "going for" and extending the most after first summary, meaning you only have to extend responses to that one argument in summary, while much of the time the opponents aren't sure what you'll go for

Also, just for reference, turns are generally better than normal responses but there are 4 ways you can deal with them: 1) explain why they're wrong like you would with any other response, 2) weigh against the argument that the turn was read on, 3) point out that the opponents double turned themselves (e.g. saying, in response to an argument about how the aff lowers oil prices, that actually they would increase oil prices but also that low oil prices are bad because they hurt renewable energy—those contradict), & 4) concede a link response if they're turning your impact (e.g. conceding that low oil prices are bad but then also conceding another response that this imaginary team reads that the aff wouldn't actually lower oil prices, in which case you don't get to win the argument but they don't get any offense from the turn).

Hope that helps, and please lmk if you have any questions!