Tobiah wrote:
> 
> Is there an important difference between assigning a value to an
> I-rate variable using the '=' opcode as opposed to using the 'init' opcode? 

No, they are equivalent for i-rate vars.
And you imagine right: '=' is run *only* at the same rate as the variable 
it assigns to, while 'init' runs at i-time for all variable types.