I just ordered a Snu for my N20. Been meaning to for a long time. I don't thing the pole breaking at the rivets is an issue. I've broken at least 3 poles from driving the bows into a wave too fast and they have all broken at the bridal wire/pole support area. If the rivets were an issue, I would have had at least one failure there. Initialy I was concerned about drilling holes and rivets due to possibly creating a weak spot. In my experiences, that just hasn't been the case.
Dennis is constantly evaluating the Snu and what could be done better. I don't think there is any other system on the market that has that kind of "evolving" engineering behind it. Besides, Dennis is just a cool mofo.