So what I ended up doing was using the constrain at the point you suggested, narrowed the range to exclude one degree per limit, and now there is no strain at all or strange jumping behavior- thanks to you problem solved! I must have had an odd line of code last time I attempted to constrain those values..
It did however make the speed of the servo increase by a factor of 5! They were moving at full speed after the code was uploaded. To fix this I took your advice on employing a scale value- 20. I also changed the mapping back to -80/83 to allow for more range of speed and less distance that the servo automatically writes should you peak the value for a split second- now it will stop moving when the stick is released. The servo angles are now equal to XpotVal/scaleValue.
The result is a solid boundary and no strained servos whatsoever!
The only issue left (albeit personal preference) is that the servos still write to the far up/left limit.. neither line of code succeeded in starting the servos at center. Still not sure why.. I can't see any issues preventing this..
Thank you for your suggestions!