This is just my opinion and experience...
I've always considered any alpha >20 to be pretty good so you shouldn't frown too much.
As for how fast you can enter a gybe... I would say as fast as you can go, but the technique completely changes when you're going 30+. With the effect of apparent wind during a gybe at higher speeds I find dropping the sail and oversheeting helps de-power the rig and keep things a lot more controlled and stable. If you look at the fast gybers many of them are doing a laydown gybe rather than the traditional carve gybe... there's just way too much pull on the sail when fully powered up making it a very fine line between going over the front or bouncing all over the place through the turn.
The apparent wind also affects timing of the rig flip and foot change... often my foot change on a fast gybe in flat water is strap-to-strap, meaning the feet are the last thing to happen, while the rig flip seems to happen sooner (but maybe that's because I'm already baring away a lot)
Anyway, that's just my observation. I'm certainly no expert and still trying to figure it all out. Someone else will probably be able to offer better insight into high-speed gybes.