Brad,
A couple of others to consider in Fife are the Jubilee Couse at St. Andrews links, which I prefer to the New, and the Craighead Links couse at Crail. I've not played the latter, but it has a good reputation. Apparently it is often overlooked by visitors focused on the history of the old Balcomie Links course. What about Carnoustie? I think it's kind of a "love it" or "hate it" course. I'm in the latter category, but plenty of others fall in the former. In any case, it sounds like you've got a great plan.
True story. Several years ago we started out at North Berwick. I flew into Edinburgh and my three friends to Glasgow (all over-night flights from the US). I took a private car (limo) from the Edinburgh airport without difficulty, then waited, and waited, and waited for the others to arrive in their rental from Glasgow. They made the tee time, but barely. Here's how one of the three described their experience: "We arrived at the Arnold Clark [car rental company] facility near the Glasgow Airport to find, as they inspected our van, that it had a flat. The spontaneous utterance from the female 'inspector' -- upon noticing the flat -- was 'not again,' which did not inspire confidence. She seemed content to tell us, however, that 'we would not be charged to repair the flat.' We had an afternoon tee time in East Lothian, and with construction looming on the M8 and a delayed flight from Philly, we were -- as they say -- needin' to get on. But rather than provide us with a new vehicle [no other van or spare tire available], Arnold Clark led us to a 'Kwik Fix' facility in Glasgow. The Arnold Clark driver made some sort of arrangements for payment, and then left, as we awaited our "kwik fix." Perhaps there are cultural differences between the U.S. and Scotland concerning the meaning of 'kwik,' for we found ourselves waiting about an hour in a tire shop that was outfitted completely with manual (no pneumatic) devices and bizarre paperwork requirements that led to tread depth measurements on tires not in issue. Although the manager was pleased to learn that we were playing The Glen, and did an apt job in both describing the layout of the first hole and his own personal best '73' on the course, we did not not hit the motorway going east until something close to two hours after we had gathered our bags at the airport. We were clucking a bit later in the week about the parallels of our experience to those of the poor fellow in the Hertz commercial ('we should have rented a Hertz'). I hope this was an anomaly, and delightfully we did make our tee time." So, Brad, unless you have the same experience my friends did, driving from Glasgow to North Berwick right off the bat is not a bad idea.
By the way, although the Glen Club (East Links at North Berwick) is not of the quality of the West Links, what most think of as North Berwick golf, we found it to be very enjoyable opening round experience (to be sure, followed by a round on the West Links the next day).