I don't think flavor would be affected, assuming your sanitation practices are sound (let us know when you're done with your "science experiment"). You might have to adjust your recipe to account for an extended hot steep of finishing hops, sort of like commercial brewers with a hot whirlpool.

I'm not sure about the temp for the buckets, but I'd imagine you might want to drop the temp a bit before transferring.

I've always wondered if this method results in hazy beers from a lack of a strong cold break.

Even on the pro-brewery level I am having to wait over night to pitch during summer temps. It's fine to do so if your sanitation procedures are top notch there's nothing really to worry about. I do agree it is not ideal but it's way better than pitching too warm.

As far as heat and plastic, general RoT is not hotter than 140 or you can start to leach out some of the plastic chemical. You should be able to get your wort cooled down to 100 degrees at least. That's what I have been doing before racking to my fermenters and cooling over night. (Actually cool mine down to 85 with a pass through my CFC on way to fermenter.)

Conventional wisdom aka dogma says that if you don't cool quickly to below 140F, you get continued conversion of DMS precursors to DMS. Now, if your malt doesn't have a lot of DMS precursors to begin with (all the but the less-modified pils malts) and you boil long and hard to get rid of the stuff to begin with, then the conversion risk becomes small.

Thats my take on it. I don't have a lot of experience with the technique to back this up.

it was me who mentioned the 'no chill' thing. As I understand it, from an article I read a couple years ago about the aussie homebrew scene, they run off into plastic jerry cans (those big plastic water/gas cans) and seal it up till it is cool enough to pitch, then pour it into fermenter. It was in BYO I think

I do know that 180+ degrees will significantly shrink/distort a Better Bottle.

I had a not-so-great "energy/resource conservation" idea once to collect the initial IC runoff water and have some hot water to clean the equipment afterwards. If Better Bottles could speak, I'd imagine it saying something along the lines of "...Look what you've done! I'm melting. I'm melting!..."

I've abandoned the Better Bottles and returned to plastic fermentation buckets--it is so much easier to clean, store, and transfer.

The following is taken from the book of Palmer, which I happen to agree with. Although, I also recommend letting your experiences and most importantly the beer flavor be your guide.

"At the end of the boil, it is important to cool the wort quickly. While it is still hot, (above 140°F) bacteria and wild yeasts are inhibited. But it is very susceptible to oxidation damage as it cools. There are also the previously mentioned sulfur compounds that evolve from the wort while it is hot. If the wort is cooled slowly, dimethyl sulfide will continue to be produced in the wort without being boiled off; causing off-flavors in the finished beer. The objective is to rapidly cool the wort to below 80°F before oxidation or contamination can occur.

Rapid cooling also forms the Cold Break. This is composed of another group of proteins that need to be thermally shocked into precipitating out of the wort. Slow cooling will not affect them. Cold break, or rather the lack of it, is the cause of Chill Haze. When a beer is chilled for drinking, these proteins partially precipitate forming a haze. As the beer warms up, the proteins re-dissolve. Only by rapid chilling from near-boiling to room temperature will the Cold Break proteins permanently precipitate and not cause Chill Haze. Chill haze is usually regarded as a cosmetic problem. You cannot taste it. However, chill haze indicates that there is an appreciable level of cold-break-type protein in the beer, which has been linked to long-term stability problems. Hazy beer tends to become stale sooner than non-hazy beer. The following are a few preferred methods for cooling the wort."

I try to chill the wort down as quickly as possible in an effort to achieve a good cold break, which aids in the mitigation of chill haze, infection and oxidation.YMMV

Hot side aeration is debatable, the DMS issue I addressed above, and I'd imagine you would get cold break whether the cooling were to happen fast or slow. Certainly my canned starter wort drops plenty of protein. Infection wouldn't be a problem if you put hot wort in a container and sealed it. So really Palmer has no irrefutable arguments against no-chill.