I've said since my first post in this thread that the dream-like hallucinations are what make salvia trips and lucid dreaming similar, that wasn't a new admission.

In fact, nothing I'm saying is new at this point. To reiterate my previous posts:
If you're not experiencing ego death, you're not breaking through completely, because 'breaking through' is the informal term for the process of achieving ego death. What you describe in your post sounds to me like a typical non-breakthrough salvia trip, though I wasn't clear on whether you were saying you were able to control your trip reality like one can with the lucid dream reality.

Salvia isn't a shortcut to LDing because LDing isn't the same thing as tripping on salvia. The two experiences involve different brain-wave states, and different parts of your brain being activated/shut down.

Finally, it's entirely possible to break through without pure salvinorin, or even salvia extract. It's all a matter of bowl size and flame intensity. But it's definitely impossible if you're smoking like you would smoke marijuana.