Hey everyone, just wanted to share what I did with my luggage rack. Instead of purchasing the actual cross members for the rack, I found a couple pieces of 1"x1" aluminum Picket and screwed them through the side pieces via internal screw grooves. Tell me if you think it looks ghetto. It holds very well, I got up and stood on one of them to see if it would hold me and it did ok but I only weigh 160lbs but I'm not planning on hauling anything over 200lbs on top so it should hold up fine. Here's some pics.
I don't think it looks bad at all. Nice job. Certainly makes for a functional crossbar now. When I saw your post, I was hoping that you were talking about the plastic/metal side supports. I'd love to replace those with something a bit more durable. I have very little faith in plastic & cringe most of the time when I'm hauling around kayaks.
That looks like a good setup. I think the LE models come with the cross bars standard, but was an option on all the others. Don't know what you are doing with a bungie cord holding the ladder on there, but it doesn't look safe at all. Hope it was just for demo purposes.