The only reason they would be forced to drop is if they didn't have the POWER to become a shinigami. That would mean they wouldn't be able to learn the name of their zanpuktou no matter how hard they tried. I see where you're coming from with them being armed and all though. There is an arc where we encounter an Asauchi, and its just stuck in a wall in one of the districts, so they are allowed to keep them. You can still do a lot of damage with a plain katana, but there is a lot of violence anyway, so I suppose it wouldn't matter much.

Well, in some cases it wouln't make much of a difference in power. Going back to the frying pan analogy, if you can't cook, then you'd be just as well off with cooking over an open flame as with using a frying pan. If you don't know what your doing...then the situation won't change. Also, some shikai's are pretty gaudy. So, fighting in close quarters the way they were where the risk of "friendly fire" is high, wouldn't be a very good idea.

My favorite song is "Rolling Star" which is the opening right before the current one. I got quite a kick out of "tonight Tonight Tonight", which is the one in english, but it was more for the interesting karaoke it created, and not so much for the song itself. The current ending (japanese) has its visuals ruined by the song. The song is just very annoying, and the English translation is.....quite....creative....?

I do quite like the current opening (Japanese) AND the visuals that support it. I really feel that the visuals depended on the SONG, and not the other way around. Like Kon singing karaoke and "dancing" in time with the song, as well as when they flash over the shinigami crew and the Espada crew in time to the song. It's all very creative.