I agree that the advantage over t-tops is not all that great, but it's worlds ahead of the solid roof I have now, as far as style goes. As far as the chassis goes, I was even thinking about going as far as a fully boxed frame. If not that far, maybe some way of running some bars along the doors to tie the front to the back.
Sho-z.. the last line of your post is good advice. I probably would not have thought about that.
As you can tell I'm still very undecided and FAR from taking any actions, and will probably back out because I like taking corners too much. I was just considering the feasibility and figured no one else knows about taking a scalpel to Z's like you guys do.