From my perspective - I don't worry about raising the guard - I take what I call the 10 and 2 (term borrowed from drivers ed) approach for hand positioning which is knuckles about cheek height, elbows down and fairly tight resembling a southpaw boxing stance so that by simply dropping pulling in my elbows a bit I can cover my mid section fairly well.
I still keep my weight 60/40 transitioning either to 60 on front, or 60 on back. It's still the basic fighting stance with the exception that I tend to be more square to the opponent than most.
I don't worry about my center line - the elbows in and a good sense of distance take care of that -
Mainly, I want to be able to be offensive. I think TCMA takes on a quasi-Bhudhist approach of passive/defensive only and it's in the forms and the stance. Everything seems to be "if he does this then I do this".
Plus being a little more square facilitates my ability to throw and use my rear hand. Because of my preference for throwing, I use the southpaw stance when I probably should use a standard stance because I'm right handed.
But then again - this is my take and maybe it doesn't work for you.