"Skirted" Winter Cover for AG...any experience out there?

[heusiknb]

I thought I was shopping early...you all have me beat.

Does anybody out there have experience with a skirted winter cover? We live high on a hill in Nebraska where the winter and spring winds could blow a cow over. We're fed up with purchasing "disposable" covers every year ("disposable" because it's shredded from the wind). We've used the bleach bottles filled with water as a ballast and it definitely helps, but they too blow around and have rubbed off the paint from the rails (even with the cover in between). Last year we added cinder blocks around the pool with cables strung through them AND the clips...which are good, but contribute to the shredding. The cinder blocks are unsightly and have ruined many a pedicure. It seems like the "skirted" covers would do basically the same thing, except I wouldn't stub my toes.

A few questions:

1) Does screwing something into the upright compromise its integrity? I'm sure it would void our warranty, but honestly I'm not too concerned about that. The ones I've seen on the WWW say you have to mount brackets to the uprights.
2) Do you still need a pillow in the center? If so, how many for a 16x32 oval? We used a 4'x8' pillow last year that developed a hole by December and was basically useless. We are relatively diligent about siphoning off snowmelt and rain.
3) Do the skirted covers have a cut-out for the skimmer or is that something you do yourself? I'm assuming that not everybody puts their skimmers in the same spot and on an oval pool you have lots of options.

Thank you all for your wisdom. You have been our guide for the past two years. We've saved a lot of money and trips to the pool store since we stumbled onto this site.

[matt4x4]

I would stay away from fastening anything to any portion of the pool, you may well regret it when it collapses.
I live in Ontario where we also have harsh winters, we're in the country so the winds get relatively wild too. The first winter we tried covering our pool, all was great until november when the winds really picked up, the winter cover was billowing like a hot air balloon (even with a ton of water on it), it looked like it was stressing the structure more that it was protecting the pool. Since we don't really have any trees close by, I chose to ditch the cover idea, it is now a type of weed barrier around the perimeter of the pool and under the solar panels - much better suited for that job in my opinion.
I don't do anything for winter prep other than lower the water/shock and take the pump inside.