You can clean up the braid run but in the end you want to catch all the metal parts that were previously ground. The path doesn't have to be the same, but the end result does. For instance, the small carriage bolts you mentioned by the flippers ground the exterior side rails are the only direct metal contact to the rails through the cabinet. You can't bypass those. With leg plates, the factory looped over the top of the plate and used one of the mounting screws to affix the braid to it. You could skip the screw and run the braid behind the plate so long as it makes solid contact.

Yes. I generally hit the joined area with two staples to be sure it's secure; like an inch apart. If you have a multimeter, I would check continuity as you go along; especially if you doing a lot of piecing together. The factory just folded the braid on itself to change directions. It's effective time-wise but looks poor. I also use solder lugs to terminate the ends of the runs with a screw. IMG_0798 (resized).JPGIMG_0801 (resized).JPGIMG_2370 (resized).JPG