first i read an article reviewing the new "Make" magazine:

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/other/make_magazine.ars/2

then inside of the magazine itself there's an article on howto build a $14 steadicam, so that perked me up. you can buy the magazine on amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0596009224/103-2904176-5962214?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance

and no i ain't affilliated with any of them. i just want to let ya'll know so you can let me know what you think of this? i just ordered the magazine to try and build one of my own for the XL2. do you think i'm being realistic or idealistic?

idealistic.

If you have a strong enough arm you can get some decent shot with a modified version of it. When I had my XL1s I used a similar one and it worked fine.