I did alot more than remove the footplate, but after spending a day with simeon and peter they showed me how there skips had a better centre of gravity, so I went about making mine a little more like that, and removing the foot plate seemed to work, it makes you push down differently and Ive found I get more height out of it.
The reason Kiola's Skips have no footplates is because he has Skip Pros, with the tilting footplates, to which his shoes are permanently bolted.
It could be your frames were warped in the first place, as ideally there should be no need to remove the footplate as the centre of gravity should be directly under the centre of it. Removing the footplate may have simply put your centre of gravity in line with the warped area (which in turn could cause some damage if you're forcing full pressure down the warped section).
The reason for the footplate is simple - it's safer and more comfortable than putting your shoes directly onto the frames (without bolting them on), and provides a larger area for force to be applied downwards. If you look at unmodified original skips (with Pixie boots), they do actually have a footplate as such, there are wider areas of plastic that your shoe sits on. Everyone I know who has Skips and got removed of the Pixie boots, replacing them with snowboard bindings, have fitted footplates after taking the pixie boot away.
