Valvetrain Geometry

Rigidity is usually but not always a good thing. I was a reliability engineer for ten years before retirement and did a lot of Long Term Reliability and HALT testing (Highly Accelerated Life Testing) on a variety of products. It was a lot of fun and we beat the **** out of everything and the engineers always complained that nothing could survive, but that was the point. Find the failure modes in a short amount of time. Anyway, you would be surprised what resonant frequency can do to a supposedly rigid design. Sometimes, adding compliance and altering the natural frequency is a better idea. There are always caveats though, and in a mechanical system like the SBM valvetrain, less flex is generally going to be better at the higher stress levels.

I've always wondered how much a thicker rocker shaft of the right heat treated material would increase stiffness of the system. With pushrod oiling, you could run a solid shaft no? Solid should be more resistant to flex between the hold downs with strong springs. On the other hand, I would have thought it's been tried before and if it isn't popular, maybe the difference is insignificant.
I was just thinking about some of this same stuff as far as resonant frequency goes. More stiffness should raise the resonant frequency. More mass should lower it. Would take a lot of high level testing to find out which is best.

I've looked at some bending/stiffness properties of hollow shafts vs solid shafts vs smaller diameter shafts. Solid is certainly stronger than hollow but not by much. It's the OD and the distance between supports that has the most effect. That's part of the reason a rigid, wide steel cap makes the most sense to me. Reduce the span.

Reducing the diameter of the shaft gives a rocker arm manufacturer more flexibility to design a strong rocker arm. A 7/8 shaft and a 1.5"+ spring make for a thin rocker arm.