ORIGINAL: crunchNmunch

I hear where you're trying to go with your modification, it's just that part of the reason they didn't make those hingepin supports more solid (without the ribbing) is that for whatever reason other things tended to break and they designed them as such as a sort of a "sheer point", kind of like a crumple zone in an automobile. They could have made them more solid, but apparently there's a reason they didn't. It could be something simple like that by them being so solid that every little bump and jump led to a broken suspension arm, or turnbuckle, or steering knuckle, and by building some give into that area is increased the overall deflection/flex of the front end and led to less breakage.

I don't know, mere speculation on my part, but that's generally been my experience with the designs of these cars from back in my day racing for AEand Losi and working on car design.