eliminate hood X brace on 55-57

[Speedbumpauto]

Did some search on here and found where one of you, at least, welded the rear support member to the hood skin as a remedy for hood flex when you don't want to use the X brace. It appeared by the pics that you didn't weld solid but only in three places where the support was spliced together. Is this correct and did it work? Anyone else willing to chime in on good fixes for eliminating/modifying that brace?
My big block/tunnel ram application makes using the brace, as is, impossible plus I think it's just plain ugly and I pancaked the hood which complicates the problem. Don't beat me up about trying to out think the GM engineers or keeping it standard, I already got that and my brain doesn't work that way. Creatitivity appreciated!