You can change the safety height in Easel from .150" to something higher if you like, for avoiding clamps and such. My machine has always raised to the safety height from home to the first cut, and from the last cut back to home, I don’t understand why it wouldn’t be working for you.
As for the inaccuracies while cutting, it sounds like you’re losing steps. You may need to adjust belt tension, potentiometers, or check the pulley screws are seated fully. One of the best resources for troubleshooting that is this forum post: [Guide] Offset cutting, Lost steps, Positioning errors, etc