Ha! I've been using they in speech for quite some time now. As you mentioned using one; or One is quite pretentious, and I can never bring myself to use it. I type it out, and then delete; hmmmm.
Then sometimes, I use the scientific style, of mixing my hes and shes, but that just gets bloody confusing!
And another thing, why not start a sentence with and? We do in spoken speech; so why not in written?
Anyways, speaking of linguistic sexism, I didn't realise how casually sexist my language was until I had a daughter. For instance, all animals, or inanimate objects where automatically he. Which takes a real seismic shift in thinking to move away from...
'nother great post; keep em coming :-)
Cg