Nice to read about your Indieweb implementations.

[…] I only build my blog hourly, [which] means webmentions can take up to an hour to appear on the site after being sent. Is that really bad UX? Do people really expect their webmentions to show up quickly on the target website?

I struggled with that, too, but I’ve settled for the static approach. I like to embrace the philosophy of slow web, so webmentions are only displayed once I decide to make changes to website (i.e. create new content). Wouter Groenevald (whose blog post about the Indieweb you almost certainly also read) recommended to use client side rendering, if you really need real time webmentions.

[…] the real fun will be implementing a micropub endpoint […]

That’s what I’m also planning to do. I’ll stay tuned for your results.