Questions / Help post brewday?

I brewed an all grain batch for the first time in 5 years. I ended up spending a few nights cleaning out all of my old gear and I used all of it for brew day. I have invested in some things to build a new mash tun (new bulkhead fittings, new braided SS hose), but for this first brew I decided I wanted to use tried and true.
I don't have Beer Smith software which I realize now I relied on A LOT in the past. So as I was starting the process I had forgotten A LOT about the process, in particular how to batch sparge correctly? I quickly jumped online on my iPad while heating mash/sparge water to try and figure out how much water I need lol...
Here are questions:
Cleaning / Sanitizing - I use idophor because it's easy to use. I fill up a large 5 gallon bucket and drop pretty much everything I'm going use for brew day (carboy stopper, tubing, thermometer, etc...). I also poured the idophor / water into the cleaned carboy and shook that around to coat the inside. Should I have rinsed after this? Should I be using a different / better cleaner / santizer? Thoughts?
Batch Sparging:
My "OG" based on the recipe was supposed to be 1.046 and my post boil ended up way short ~(1.031). I attribute this to using WAY too much sparge water and here is where I need help.
I used 6.25lb of malt and I added ~2.15 gallons of water @ 168F. That seemed to be correct and my temp settled ~155F and held quite well for an hour. I stirred occasionally but lightly as to not upset the grain bed (also had pre-heated the mash tune which was a large iGloo cooler (rectangular). Then I used a caculator that suggested I need around 6.5 gallons of water to sparge, but I don't think this was right. I was shooting for 7 gallons pre-boil (when I probably only needed 6 or a little more) and I ended up with almost 8 gallons preboil in my keggle???
I barely did a vorlauf and I forget am I supposed to completely drain the grains of the first runnings (and vorlauf) BEFORE sparging??? or do you vorlauf and DON'T run off into the kettle until AFTER you have added the sparge water?
Also, I had to do two passes of batch sparging (~3.75 gallons 2x) and that seems like a LOT of water.
Here where I think I screwed up and lost all of my efficiency.
1. not completely draning the first runnings after vorlauf into the kettle
2. Adding TOO MUCH sparge water - I should be able to fit all of the sparge water for batch sparging 6.25lb of grain in a 24 quart cooler in one pass, right? I'm almost certain I never had to add water (and sparge) 2 times unless it was a huge beer (or double batch).
3. I used a Northern Brewer kit that was probably based on very high efficiency. I guess I need to assume a lower efficiency of ~65% and then make up recipe's with more grain? At least to start?
4. Get Beersmith! (I seem to recall it was GREAT at calculating based on batch sparging methods).

So, how did I miscalculate the water?
Did I indeed sparge incorrectly?
Any advice?
I want to brew again soon... this batch is actually fermenting fine with Danstar Nottingham, 2 days in and I got a healthy krausen and the yeast are killing the sugars. I figure I'll probably end up with a VERY light English bitter that will probably be pretty damn bitter.
My counterflow chiller (made from garden hose and an immersion chiller) kicked complete ass though!
All the old gear actually worked really well. The new Bayou burner cranked, but it was a cold and WINDY day so the boil was not as rolling as I would like.
Anyway, I'll get there - just need to recalculate and work on my sparging techniques.

 

I took another look at the recipe: http://www.northernbrewer.com/documentation/allgrain/AG-Innkeeper.pdf
and OG is 1.043
Also the recipe called for 1lb of Corn Sugar @ 60 minutes so that is going to raise gravity as well, right?
Also, I think I got to the point of testing the preboil gravity in the past (which I did not bother to do this time, I just figured it is what it is by that point). Should I get in the practice of checking preboil gravity each brew?
I also have a refractometer (which I barely remember how to use lol...
Should I use refractometer for preboil gravity or post boil?
And in this particular case (a recipe adding corn sugar to the boil) preboil OG would have not really helped much at all, right?

 

That is the thing, I DID add it during boil just as the recipe called for so I mashed 6.25lb of grain, mashed out AND added the 1lb of corn sugar to the boil @ 60 minutes and final gravity was low (1.031).

 

I guess if I had some DME on hand I could have boiled that, cooled it down and added to the carboy to get the OG up. Yes, like I said the amount of pre-boil wort seemed to be almost 8 gallons when I was shooting for about 7 (and in actuality should have really been shooting for ~6.5 gallons or so). My boil off definitely is not more than a gallon on this system and I lose maybe .5 gallon to trub.
What made it into primary was close to 6 gallons and I literally stopped after that amount probably leaving another 1 gallon in the kettle (I didn't want to fill the carboy too high and I definitely didn't want to have more than one pony keg worth of this brew to handle). I figure after everything settles I'll end up with 5 gallons for sure.
So again, I think the calculator I used for my rig is off on amount of water. I made two major mistakes which were:
1. not completely draining first runnings after vorlauf into the kettle before batch sparging
2. relying on an online calculator under the gun without taking my time building the recipe using Beersmith
3. Using a NB recipe that calls for corn sugar in the boil and is probably based on a pretty high brewhouse efficiency

It kills me that I used to have my rig dialed in and I used to use Beersmith and had a LOT of recipes brewed that I had printed out but are sadly lost (including my original installation of Beersmith).
I'm going to use that Jamil Red IPA recipe that was floating around and I'm going to plug it into Beersmith this time and probably assume a low brewhouse efficiency (~65%). That way I'm ordering the right amount of grain and will probably get pretty close to my efficiency. I think in the past when I was doing preboil gravity tests, using my refractometer, etc... you know, REALLY INTO IT my brewhouse efficiency was quite good (~75%) and that was with my home made mash tun and batch sparging. Gotta get there again!

 

Ok, for this batch I would estimate (total guess) the actual volume was probably 7 gallons when I wanted 5.5 or so?
I downloaded the free version of Beersmith so I'm going to plug in the NB recipe after creating my beer equipment profile and see what's doing. I'm expecting to have to up the grain bill to get the OG they were looking for on this recipe.
In any case, it was a $25 recipe shipped and it did allow me to get my gear out and refresh my memory and test out the new burner and some old gear (which still kicks ass).
Who knows, maybe it will end up a nice light session brew with a little more kick but still enjoyable? I love heading downstairs and seeing that carboy stopper bubbling like crazy

 

I guess the issue with corn sugar in the boil is that you can't take a preboil gravity reading if you are going to be adding in more fermentables DURING the boil. So in Beersmith my actual amount of "grains" used is 7.25lb vs. 6.25lb which makes sense.
I created my equipment profile in Beersmith (I think it's quite close to correct going by memory of the past and current experience with trub loss, boil off time, etc...).
So after doing all of that and changing my Measured OG from ~1.043 to what I got, 1.031 and changing my measured batch size to 7 gallons (which I believe is close to the total amount of wort I could have collected from the kettle the measured efficiency is 75.6%

 

Now, there is a "Mash" tab in Beersmith and it saying Mash In - Add 9.91 quarts of water @156.8F for a step temp of 148F and step time of 75 minutes. I belive my strike water was closer to 165F and like I said I mashed in and it settled temp around 154F for 60 minutes (personally I think this is still good for mashing?).
The thing is it's telling me to SPARGE with 2 steps (1.91 gal, 3.62gal)of 168F water).
This is where I'm getting tripped up... I really just need to know exactly how much sparge water I need to add AFTER taking my first runnings.
EDIT: SHIT... the sparge amount = about 5.5 gallons. The calculator I used online said something like 6.25 gallons. Now that I recall I think I split this sparge water in two smaller kettles, 3.5 gallons a piece = 7 gallons lol...
So, WAY too much water.
But why 2 STEPS to batch sparge as listed above? I'm confident I can fit 5.5-6 gallons in my cooler, it's a 48 quart (12 gallon) Rubbermaid cooler.

 

Like I said POST BOIL (6 gallons at least in the fermenter and another 1 gallon or more I left in the keggle):

31 points x (7 gallons / 5 gallons) = 43.4 points
So the original recipe called for 1.043OG, does that mean my efficiency is dialed in to what NB expects for an all grain brew (~75%) and that my system (and the grain crush, and my amounts for boil off, trub loss, etc...) are actually quite accurate? It's just that I added to much damn sparge water?