I was just tinkering really. It was fine for light rigging but it's totally outside it's intended use.
My opinion, having used all that stuff, go with the safeblock. Works great. Takes a beating, simple, can handle big stuff.
My back bone just gathers dust.
No, I never did try that. The safeblock showed up pretty soon after that! Don't think I played with this much after that.
I've never held the small backbone. From the photos it looked to be a smaller diameter stock maybe?