Thank you to everyone for their thoughtful suggestions. I've started to "micro" more projects (i.e., if a project has many steps, and the steps themselves are mini-projects, I make them a project), so I'm finding more, and also record any > 1 step task as a project.

I haven't had any trouble linking child to parent without fancy software. I just use a wordy description of the task, and GTD's promise that your mind will link them actually seems to work (it seems unbelievable, but it does).