Back in the pool after many years

Folks, I'm debating whether to get into triathlon's and much is riding on how well I can re-acclimate to swimming. I swam competitively almost 30 years ago. That is the bad news. The good news is I have had 3 re-immersions, so-to-speak, since then (1982/1988/2000) and the stroke mechanics seem to come back after about 6 weeks. I've been an avid cyclist x 18 years and runner x 3 years so I'm still pretty fit for a 46 year old. Each time I went back in the pool I relied on pull bouys to improve my buoyancy (my kick was weak as a kid too). My questions: 1) should I go cold turkey and not even look at the pull buoys? 2) should I do distance as oppposed to sprint intervals? 3) back then, I was told to look forward during freestyle (waterline should be in middle of forehead), but it seems that hydrodynamics would favor looking down...am I wrong here? P.S. back in the 70's, there were no hydophilic suits, backstroke did not allow a freestyle turn and the underwater portion of the fly could not go past the 5 yard marker. How times have changed.:frustrated: Thanks.