So, Wheelbuilders, who's up for a challenge?

I think the point was that for a given number of spokes, letting a third of them do no lateral bracing must reduce the overall lateral stiffness of the wheel. Since 20 spoke road wheels with huge amounts of dish turn out to be stiff enough laterally even for big sprinters, I doubt that this amounts to a problem in practice.

It's not stiffness when riding I worried about more strength from hits from, potholes rocks , ... whatever, which is a reality unless you ride only on the track or up and down dual carriageways.