After finally being able to move on to actually animating for this project, I decided to start with something simple.
The first animation that I wanted to make with my completed rig is a run cycle, since it requires full body movement on both sides, and would clearly demonstrate if there were any major issues in the most basic parts of the rig. I was pleased to find that this animation went smoothly and worked well. I was able to use my custom controllers effectively to create this animation, including the reverse foot controls that I set up, and the hand controllers that I created for ease of use. Throughout this process there were some minor tweaks that were highlighted as essential to fix, such as some small areas that were missed in my weight painting, but these were easily resolved.