Wow. Nice work, Tobias. Sometimes we learn the most when things seem hopeless. Your reasoning was right that there was nothing to lose by taking a chance on opening the YTO, and you came up with a great alternative to get around the problem.
I hope you plan to keep that web-page available - it's a good story and resource with good pix of the YTO innards, for future reference. I'd recommend you also post the images to the photos department here.
Ed