Those cross-references made my head spin a bunch; the wordplay of 1A in particular felt more like work than play. (It doesn't help that [swapped sides] is a bit ambiguous as an indicator.) You've got good ideas, though, so my only advice is to really focus on those surfaces: the heteronym of 3D is funny AD HERE and 5A is a wonderful surface—I'm just not sure about how BEAST is meant to become BEET; where's the indicator that AS is E? The repetition of 7A, when talking about errands, worked for me, but again, I don't know that [first] is doing enough to indicate first letters of preceding words. You had a lot of those sorts of bits-and-pieces: [the last], [finally solve], [and hollow], and you're very much on the right track with using them deceptively! Cheers to many more.
Thank you for the detailed response. I am still trying to figure out what comes across clearly and what does not, and pointing out what is confusing definitely helps. I was going for Belle and Bete in 5A , but it seems like that I might have needed to be a bit clearer there.
Phew, cross referencing in a cryptic? Had no shot with those at the beginning, but once I nailed everything else, down it wasn’t too hard to put together. Thanks!