Wm Watt wrote:

You'd have to come up with something more subtantial than theory and
hearsay to offer worthwhile advice.

Theory is based on and validated by testing.

In a word, take your own advice
above substituting "real structures" for "stress analysis".

In my case, real structures include ice breakers (finite element analysis of the
USCG Polar Star when it was instrumented for ice forces on an arctic trip in
1981), offshore oil structures in the Beaufort Sea, aircraft (Canadair
Challenger (now Bombardier)) some buildings and lots of other things.

Your experience is playing in puddles with boats that never get tested.

Since you don't even know that a structure without a straight load path _must_
bend, then you don't know anything that justifies your claims to expertise.

Mike