Yep, that's pretty much it. You need to ensure you do not become disoriented in the turbulence following a ditching and practicing the required skills in a pool mock-up is highly recommended; teaching aircraft survival on a web forum is not the optimum format.

Last time I recertified one of the things I had to demonstrate was moving hand-over-hand down a pole underwater to a hatch, open the hatch and swim through. The helmet I wore doing this was buoyant and as long as I had a good hand-hold I could stay down, but as soon as I went through the hatch there was no hand-hold and the helmet pulled me straight to the surface. That was just a helmet, swimming underwater with a Type III PFD would be a challenge and following a real ditching you want to keep challenges to a minimum.

As to the question of picking a non-inflatable due to a fear of damage to an inflatable model, the Switlik model I have is fairly resilient with a nylon cover and the LPU-32 outer casing is Nomex. It would take a lot to seriously damage them, that would be far down my list of concerns. Successful egress following the ditching is #1.