I too had worried about breaking the plastic when trying to remove the sway bars.
Prying it gently out of the clips with the mini-screwdriver seemed to work for me, but its not something I want to do very often.
I haven't tried the spring suspension mod, but that's only a matter of time. Instead, in the meantime, I simply bent the arms of the suspension down to take out most / all the play. The car runs fine (at least on nice smooth surfaces) and it seems to have helped with steering control.
The only good site I have seen with details on pulling the whole front end apart can be found at:
http://www.ausmicro.com/technical/bi...w-to/index.htm