Remove static hack

Removes the hacky static-setter model of preconfiguring the local connector and replaces with a pre-load check for a "symlink" file to the configuration properties file. As part of the rewrite, the test code replaced the direct static state twiddling with a stubbed `openFile` implementation to let an explicit file-open operation read out of the classpath instead. Documentation has been rewritten appropriately.

This PR supersedes #58, which was a preliminary cleanup.