My main dilemena is sifting through the different types available to me . 

So, even if the appraiser had weighted the Income Approach in their final reconciliation of value, resulting in a higher value, the bank would have sifted through the appraisal to find the value estimated derived from the Sales Comparison Approach and used that number.

That might sound low but if you work full time and have 40-50 prospective sales to sift through it's not that time effective to do more than a few.

Should they actively present me deals as they arise, or expect me to sift through my daily search update emails myself for deals?

As you might imagine I discard a bulk of these.After sifting it down to a small handful I go in and look at them, look at photos, area of town, rental rates, etc.

I just figured that would take a very long time sifting through each and every probate calling reps and asking if they were left  property.

I plan on going back tomorrow to just sift through info and continue to familiarize myself with their system. 

Sift through every property you own and evaluate the available equity.

Surely, I have to be able to quickly sift through dozens of houses to know which are worth looking into more. 

Plenty of free info on the site for you to sift through as you decide which strategy suits you best.