The Viennese Waltz has always been the most difficult for me to master, and I have had much help from my instructors and terence on this site, when he encouraged me to master the natural turn first and foremost and attack the cross-over step later. I was always getting bogged down with the cross-over step right away in the dance, and now it is much smoother transition from natural to cross-over. But, here's my question. I have noticed some others in our studio who take very small steps in doing the VW, and it looks fine and they are very good dancers. I have always viewed it as a sweeping, swirling dance, and that's probably why I am not very good at it. When I shortened the spacing of my steps, it seemed much better. In my mind, Jonathan is taking fairly large steps on the videos on this site, whereas an Andy Wong video I watched really had it more compact. Both looked quite good. I was wondering what the other posters on the site think about this. Is there a general rule on spacing of steps, or does it depend on the individual dancers' skills, the size of the dance floor, the number of people on the floor, etc? In the meantime, I believe it has been a mistake for me to try to "fly about the floor" with this dance. Keeping it small and simple seems to suit me better. Plus, the tempo is so fast for this dance, how could it be that I would think longer steps would work?

Especially in the reverse turns which don't have much sway, the step of the moving foot is not very large in relation to the body. However for a strong competitive dancer, the movement of the body away from the standing foot could be quite large - this gives a lot of travel without actually taking "big steps". For a more casual dancer, there might not be much body movement away from the standing foot until after the moving foot lands, so there might not be very big steps at all.

When sway is used in movement, for example on the natural turn, the incline of the body means that an extension of the spine points to a spot further away on the floor. If the moving foot is placed near that spot, it will be strongly connected to the body even though it's further away on the floor than where the spine would point without sway.

This is just my opinion...not backed by formal science but what I have been taught and what I have observed. The crossover steps are small when you are actually doing the cross and when you are the opposite partner the movement must be just large enough to comfortably get around your partner without losing position in the line of dance.

If you are dancing with someone who steps a little too widely then you will have to compensate to get all the way around. If your partner is dainty in their footwork and can't get around you then your footwork is going to be awkward and you are back to line of dance issues. I think VW is really susceptible to difficulty because the two dancers really have to be in-sync and consistent and honestly similar in size or good enough to compensate for differences.

As far as the fly around the floor couples, it has to do sometimes with the length of a couples legs, how comfortable they are dancing with each other and how willing they are to dance at the edge.

You touched on a very relevant point.. the " Inside / Outside " responsibilty of each person during rotation .

Not sure what Dheun meant by 'cross-over' steps. However, the best advice i can offer is: for the man, think strong123 (going forward) weak456 (going back). When the man goes back, the lady drives forward, and the man mustn't move away from her. And vice-versa. On the naturals when going back (as a man) take the first almost straight down LOD and use plenty of CBM to allow the lady past. Lady does the same of course when she goes back.
If you're competing, don't even think about restricting your movements because of other people on the floor. In a studio pactising then of course, you may have to.