I love my mouse and I hate my mouse. I love my mouse because it has buttons on both sides in order to do the FORWARD & BACKWARD commands that make browsing so much easier. However, I hate my mouse for the very same reason. Once you've spent a long time filling out a textbox--and then you reach for you mouse and accidentally hit one of the buttons--you navigate away from the page and everything goes away. And that's quite annoying.
So, this is the condensed version of what I wrote. I never used the Cactus V2s hotshoe mounts either as they're poorly designed and executed (I didn't trust weight on them). You don't necessarily need the hotshoe connector if you're using Cactus V2s units and Vivitar 285HVs (as a newly purchased 285HV come with a cable that connects the flash to the V2s receiver). However, using other flashes makes that hoteshoe connector mandatory. The best thing I've found is Item #0128 Female Hotshoe with Miniphone Jack (female) from flashzebra.
I was trying to learn how to weld and do the mods on the CTR-301s at the same time--I wouldn't necessarily recommend trying that. I screwed them up. However, I was trying to squeeze out more functionality out of them--more range and better battery life. Just the fact that I felt the mod was necessary (and having failed trying) pushed me over the edge--I bought Cybersyncs the next week.
Here's my setup for securing the Cybersyncs when they're being used:
(It's a vent caddy from Wal-Mart. I put a grommet in it. I attach the hook (designed to cling to a vent) to a knob on my umbrella swivel.)