Whoa, so much to address:
Concerning tie motion, it's yet another thing that will be fixed in DB3 - the way I understand it, bots that are tied will be linked surface-to-surface, so they can't really stretch. However, it means turning will affect the entire organism, so would give realistic motion. As a result, turning will require exerting a torque rather than setting an angle (this makes aiming a bit of a pain, but having to develop muscles to flex seems like a good thing.)
I don't really have time to work on projects this year, and I also don't have anywhere to 'playtest' the code, so I'll mostly be dropping handy hints. I tried to make it obvious how the structure works, but if you have doubts, feel free to ask and I'll try my best to explain them.
Oh yeah, and no tie limits, but make sure to give your ties good IDs so the bots can easily find them...