G'day Pete,
I think cutting the bottom out of the mount might lose some of its rigidity. The hole for the AXI would need to be very big...
I found an old pic that Mike posted on the VF3 Glow thread and it seems that he didn't use the braces at all...[X(]
I don't like the idea of ommitting the braces all together as it must give quite a bit of strength to this area. I may just modify them buy cutting the middle out of them. I will post some pics once it's done so others have a reference.
Cheers
Jason.