So my left-hand pinky is odd. It naturally doesn't want to come straight down, it swings outward then comes down at a curve...then it locks at the third knuckle. It doesn't effect my playing too much now, but I can imagine that as I become more advanced it could effect speed and dexterity.
I'm working at training it to behave better and working its strength with a varigrip. In the long haul, should I really be all that concerned or should I just let my hand do what it does naturally?
Thoughts?

Not sure if mine is the same as yours, but my pinkie doesn't come straight down either. Like you mentioned, it goes outwards, but mine the curves inwards, so it's pointing towards my first finger. Severely limits my reach I think.

How fast do you play? When you're playing at one note every 2 seconds, your pinkie probably won't do that haha

Once you can comfortably play at that speed, play a tiny bit faster.. and then a tiny bit faster... BUT you need to make sure that your pinkie doesn't start making those motions, and if it does, then either SLOW down or, make some real-time adjustments with your fingers to cut that weirdness out. lol