Thanks for your responses, all good points...

Mike: The links just push in, like a normal link. The bolts you can see in the picture are static, you dont need to tighten them or anything when arming.

Paul - a good point which I will need to think about. I use a PCB cleaning block to shine up the link before using it, which may be enough, I havent noticed it getting warm yet. However, dangers of heating up batteries notwithstanding, performance and damage to components are secondary to safety.

Alan and Mario have perhaps the most important points. It does require both links to be pulled to make the robot safe, and I think this is where most disagreement will occur. The reason there are two links is because its very nearly a clusterbot . The front and the back are just bolted together at the moment, theres no or mechanical or electrical connection between them and both can run independently. Once I sort out a mechanism to disconnect them, it will be a true clusterbot, but I would still like to run it as a joined up unit if possible. Id really like to keep the two sides independent and that means not running cables between them.

RE inversion - yes, its going to be difficult to remove the links if it gets flipped over, but I think this is true of quite a few robots.