If you just try alternately waving your fingers in the air (like rapping your fingers) can you feel a difference between your fretting and picking hands? My fretting hand feels smoother. I take it that that's down to hours of practice.
The worst hand ache I get is from practicing barre chords on a high action acoustic. 4 finger/string legato exercises with stretch fingerings used to kill me too. Now I rarely get any kind of hand ache because my fingers are very relaxed when I play and my guitar has a thin neck/low action.
Don't try playing somewhere really cold, you'll embarrass yourself! You may sound good but you'll know your performance is suffering. This is what I don't like about playing outside at beach bonfires.