I finally had my PT evaluation last Thursday (4 days ago). I'd been pushing pretty hard on flexibility and strengthening, so I was able to walk into the place with only a minor limp. The limp seems to be caused mostly by the swelling in the ankle that prevents me from flexing properly when I walk. However, as I learned, I am capable of flexing more, so it's just a question of forcing myself to do so.
First, overall status: I can spin bike now for 30 minutes and figure that it's no longer the ankle that's holding me back there, so I might as well just bite the bullet and go back to a real cardiovascular workout. Even though I spent 6 weeks on crutches using a lot of upper-body strength, I can no longer do the sets of bicep curls I could do before -- sigh, back to the weights too. However, I'm getting some decent strength out of the ankle and I can balance on it for at least 10 seconds (neither the PT nor I wanted to push much more than that right now).
My physical therapist took a lot of measurements to quantify just how limited my flexibility is -- plantarflexion (pointing the toes) is the worst (about a 15 degree angle instead of a 45 degree angle), although dorsiflexion (toes to your nose) isn't much better -- I can get 3 degrees past neutral (as opposed to 20-25 on the other foot). A figure 8 around my foot and ankle is 2 cm larger on the left (swollen) side.
Basically all good progress, and I promise to write about things other than my ankle real soon now!
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