Weak barreled micro armor miniatures

Everybody's discussing CMD and IM tanks, but my favorite is GHQ's
Modern Micro Armor.  There's one problem with these wonderfully
detailed tanks, though; the scale barrel is so small, it bends very
easily.  Most really small guns (on my models, at least) are close
to the surface of the model and it's not much of an issue; it's the
big main guns that bend easily.

As a solution, I'm considering replacing the barrels with brass rod.
Any comments?  Has anyone done anything similar?

BTW, here would be my ranking between the 3, all opinion, of course:

      Width of range   Detail quality	Value for money
      ==============   ==============	===============
MMA    6+/10		9/10		 10/10 (5 tanks for US $7 or so)
CMD    8+/10		7/10		  7/10 (same price as above)
IM     4+/10		3/10		  6/10 (they are cheap!!)

MMA's width is constrained by modern vehicles, no grav, walkers, etc...
CMD's lowish detail rating a combo of design and casting (VERY little
flash on MMA, some on my CMD tanks).  IM....I could do that.  :)
All got +'s because I doubt I've seen everything they make.

--
Andrew E. B. Cowell <cowell@cs.utk.edu>
http://www.cs.utk.edu/~cowell/