Marke14,
The Wire-Luff furlers will not work for reefing for a few reasons, the luff-wire does not have enough torque resistance to consistently furl the sail evenly top to bottom, the drum applies torque (turning force) to the lower end but the further up the luff of the sail that twisting force gets, the less effect it has on rolling up the sail. A furler with an aluminum or composite extrusion to support the jib will produce a much more even twist for it's full length, as it is more rigid, and so as the drum rotates the extrusion, it rolls in the sail uniformly over it's full lull length. Even then, it is less than ideal for reefing, as sails have a curved "belly" shape to them and that results in there being more material to roll up in the middle of the jib than at the top and bottom, so the sail gets "baggier" with more "belly" as it is rolled up. The answer to this is to ad a foam pad in the luff of the sail to help roll in more material in that middle section of the jib, so it furls flatter, maintaining a better shape. The wire luff furlers can't really benefit from a foam pad because of the way they furl "from the bottom up", and the force of the wind on the sail tends of pull the sail out, unrolling it except at the bottom where the drum has most of it's effect.
Kind of hard to really explain all of this, but maybe think of it like this, hold a roller-type window shade by the top "shaft", and pull on the shade, notice how it just get tighter around that roller, but still uniform top to bottom (well, OK, side to side?). Now have someone hold a rolled up cloth (like a Boy scout's neckerchief) and pull the cloth out, see how it just pulls out..... the roll gets smaller and tighter, but it will unroll almost completely in the middle while the ends are held. Basically, that is what a partially furled wire-luff jib furler does. They are good when fully unrolled, and good when fully rolled up, but there is no way to really get them to keep the proper shape unless fully unrolled (and they can sag out of shape even then).
Finally, if the jib you found without hanks is already pretty limp and stretched out, it is not going to furl smoothly anyway, stretched out sails will have poor shape, and tend to cause more heeling (tipping) of the boat as they trap the wind, and so less of the wind's power goes to moving boat forward due to how much ends up causing that increased heeling. Blow out (stretched) sails will work better when sailing downwind than flatter sails will, as they catch more wind, but upwind, they will still work, but not efficiently. You could buy a furler setup and try it, but unless you found a decent used set, it is a little pricey if you did not get the results you hoped for.
As I say, it isn't real easy to explain all of this, easier to demonstrate, but can't really do that in an on-line forum (unless I had a video?).
Although they still really don't work for reefing, the newest Day Sailers (DSIV) built by Cape Cod Shipbuilding, do offer an optional jib furler, but that one is setup to replace the forestay, jib can't be removed without un-stepping mast. Those do have a big advantage in that they can be set up with a tighter luff than the wire-luff jib furlers that set just aft of the forestay, since with no separate forestay, there is no chance of jib luff and forestay getting tangled up. I would assume that involves a special type of swivel bearings in the furling gear.
