Pretty much, except the minimal amount of play in the plastic end. Those are used ballends, but they are still descently tight. Since the links move in opposite directions, they can't rotate in the balls themselves.
I don't have any stock uppers to play with right now. But was planning on playing around with that when my RPM's show up. Also someone suggested using one of these http://www.gshobby.com/index.php?mai...ducts_id=18347 I'm trying to find out the length, but it might hold some possibilties.

As far as doubling up the tower, I'm not sure that even that would be strong enough. However STRC has an aluminum shock tower, and doubling it up with the plastic might work.

I wish Mike was around to answer E-mails. I would love for him to say he had some towers in the works, and it would be no sweat to thicken that area up.