Yes I think most of us will a few of the backplate you've linked either from buying a large HSF like the TRUE or from a waterblock. However not all of us have tools like dremel or power drills to mod ours, so we will have to rely on buying the backplate as-is.
The point of adding the Silicon Image chip is to provide hardware RAID, is to basically speed things up as it will automatically set the 2 drives connected to those ports as RAID0, and you don't need drivers for windows to recognise the RAID setup and install onto it. As for the performance advantages I have no idea.
Many high-end motherboards nowadays will tell you that you will get better overclocking results from using the dual channel slots further away from the Northbridge. This is because as they are further from the NB, the motherboard manufactures have more room to finetune the PCB circuitry, to basically "line up" the 2 ports better, so when the data frequency is very high as when overclocking, they get cleaner and more syncronised signals.
nVidia chipsets such as the 790i only officially support 2000Mhz DDR speeds on the slots further from the NB, and 1800Mhz DDR on the closer 2.
As for the fat ML Cap... apparently as they have MUCH higher capacitance then standard solid aluminum caps, and provides cleaner power to the 3 components: CPU, RAM and Northbridge. It's like only the most expensive Ferrari uses the magnetorheological shock absorber while the rest gets good'ol hydraulics ones. Now are they necessary? no. Are they good bragging material? hell yeah! Although the Rampage Extreme with the ML caps already broke quite a few FSB and memory speed world records, so I would think they're most probably not just for show.
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