I agree. I've never used the cheapo plates - I got a pre-bent set and an upgraded set when I bought the kit used. But, I can tell you that I would not want to torque ANY plates to spec. Factory spec torque is for the centered plates. They are designed to let the strut shaft move in the tower, sliding the plate with it. When you offset things, you change the geometry of the motion, and the bending forces on the shaft skyrocket. I am glad the plates bend - they're giving way instead of the strut! After the hat is settled into the tower, it will take a lot of force to dislodge and rotate it, so having the cap just finger-pressure snug against the top of the tower seems like good prevention of it actually coming out far enough to do damage, but nothing else.
I find that the nut holding the top plate on sits against the nut on the strut hat, so I can't snug the plate down anyway, FWIW.
