“Mister, you've got a lot of hard bark on you walkin' down here like this…” - Richard Boone's character Grimes, in Hombre
When it comes to paddling in cold weather/water you're going to need something more than hard bark on you.
Judging by the significant number of serious downwinding videos from Scandinavia where paddlers are wearing drysuits, those folks have clearly come to terms with strenuous paddling in drysuits. Beyond the obvious tips for cooling down, we hope we will get more insight from those paddlers about how they manage temperature with drysuit paddling.
It's not unusual for surfskiers to not use footstraps (e.g. step on top of them) when they use cold water footwear that is wide enough to make keeping one's bootied feet side-by-side under straps difficult or impossible.
Hats can be particularly handy for adjusting comfort because they often can be easily carried on your person or on your boat and put-on/taken-off as comfort varies from exertion, fatigue and weather conditions.