Glad to hear it all looks OK. Sounds as though it's settling down. There's a whole bunch of plates making up the clutch pack. When you pull the lever, you take the pressure off the pack and allow it to slip. Much the same as a car clutch, but with more plates. As the pack gets thinner, due to wear, the adjustment moves. Gradually you lose free travel in the clutch levers. If not adjusted, it'd come up against the cam and you'd start running the thrust bearing all the time. Eventually the pack would start to slip. Basically, you keep moving the adjustment inwards to maintain 50 mm free travel at the lever ends and you won't go too far wrong.
The brakes don't interact with the clutch. They simply restrain the track that the clutch has released from driving. If the brakes are a work out, it means the clutch isn't disengaging fully. From what you are saying, it seems likely that the steel clutch plates are rusted. This has caused some expansion of the clutch, along with grabbing. If this is the case, you are totally correct; best thing to do is to use it and polish those plates up! I reckon you'll be adjusting the levers fairly frequently for a while and then it'll settle down.