I like your metaphor with the football field, sprinklers, and bowls.

Regarding doing nothing when going out of range... it depends. If one of the tokens in the pool is a stablecoin and you go out of range to the upside, then you don't benefit of the potential gain of the volatile token if you remain with the stablecoin when you exit the range. If the volatile token goes up above the upper limit of the range with something like 5-10%, you could lose much more than what you gained in fees, especially if the price doesn't come down (soon). On the lower side of the range, it is exactly how you said (in the bull market), you can wait to get back in range.