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  I like them as an activation type exercise, I just rarely use them for anything else unless its the single leg version and ill explain why. 

  First, I have had 130 lb females that can come in and use 225 for reps the first time they did the exercise, to get a decent training effect that would put most the strong guys using in excess of 400lbs or so, and its not easy to set that up nor is it very efficient use of time imo. The single leg version is much more reasonable in most these cases.  The bottom of the range of motion is where most of the magic happens (stretch position), and unless you elevate both your feet and shoulders, you really dont get much work in that range with the hip thrust.  Even elevated, in the bottom of the rom the glutes arent really pushing UP against gravity, its more of a back, and up.  I feel like I gave the exercise a fair shake and just didnt really get much from it, reverse hypers, ghrs done right, rdls, even kettlebell swings were more effective imo.

  All that being said, its a great way to prime the glutes and the hip hinge movement pattern for another exercise or event like a broad jump, and prior to snatching or cleaning we do them in the warm up sometimes.  If you have trouble getting the hips into the lift, doing a few sets of hip thrusts first is a great teaching tool and can help a lot. Good luck with them, Ill be interested to see what differences you notice after you implement them for a while.

I do them for activation and recovery. Before and after a workout, I foam roll my back then do the hip thrust. It seems to work well, I haven't had back pain in a while and hip involvement in the lifts seems to be improving.

When I try the hip thrust with weight I run into the problem of having pain in my hip flexors for the next few days. Not sure how this can be avoided, even did them with the pad and the pain was still there. I dropped them for this reason. Not sure if this is a problem you might run into...

I think I won't benefit too much from them to be honest because I'm not able to finish in a hip hyperextended position in the first place, no even without a barbell over me. My anterior tilt is very pronounced so I'm not able to finish in a hyperextended position.

Any idea on how to improve on that? (other than hip flexor stretches that never worked)

Lower abdominal work? (hard to grasp that since the abs are a single muscle - and I'm talking about the rectus abdominis here)

What should be the focus in terms of specific exercises? Would ab wheel rollouts be good for strengthening the abs for anterior pelvic tilt correction purposes?

Yeah I'll also do leg raising work. I did that test where you lie on your back and lower the legs from perpendicular all the way to the floor while trying to keep the lower back flat, pushing into the ground. I couldn't go all the way through which shows some ab weakness (there was some space starting to form between my lowerback and the floor when I got to a few inches away from the ground with the feet).