Also wondering where in that pretty blue on grey image you see a "slow rise and fall". Actually, I wonder what that image even tries to show. Based on the general forum topic I guess it's some kind of signal, but what??
For the PCB: the few designs I've done so far I gave a ground plane on the bottom (largely unused - a few traces that really couldn't be routed on top) and Vcc plane on the top side (where most of the traces are as well) - all also based on SMD components. For through-hole designs maybe do this upside-down, don't know what'd be better.