Yes, I put them out as you suggested. Doing the gear was probably the hardest part of the build for me. The OS wants a 13 or 14 inch diameter prop, and take offs/landings on our rough field require another 1.5-2" of ground clearance. Combining those two things meant the struts had to be fairly long. Another thing that I've noticed is that even though my wheel wells are about 3-1/4" in diameter, I had to use 2-1/4" wheels to make sure the wheels didn't hang up on the edge of the wheel well. So the ground appearance of the plane is a bit strange, with little wheels out at the end of tall, skinny stuts. I think your idea of using Robostruts will probably look better.