>>23446770
>You need two contra-rotating cylinders in order to neutralize the gyroscopic effects of a single spinning cylinder
You misunderstand.
-you need a contra-rotating MASS to neutralize the gyroscopic effect,
-it doesn't need to be another colony,
-it doesn't need to be parallel,
-making it dumb mass has other practical use, you can even make it your primary radiation-shield if you want.

So you could build an entire GRID of linked 3-island type colonies so long as the gyroscopic effects is neutralized overall.
Beside the 3-island kind is a fancy way of obtaining reflected-sunlight and a nice view. It's not efficient and a closed type can be big enough to have blue sky.

>This bridge analogy is heavily flawed for several reasons.
You pretty much confirmed the opposite.
Suspension bridges are dynamic structures, and rotating space-colonies would be even more so. The more mass you need to hold together, the closer to material limit you get, and if you have effect of resonance you discovers the colony will pretty much destroy itself throught vibration or fatigue.

>>23446778
See previous posts, thickness is not a good idea. It increase structural fatigues and make everything harder to maintain.
You only need airtightness & compartimentalization against asteroids.
The cheap & efficient solutions against natural problems are NOT good against man-made weapons.

>it is a lot more akin to a hanging platform held up by rails along the edges. The analogy is very tortured.
Suspension. Bridges.

Gundam colonies' doesn't have cables but that's only because the artist simply copied the fancy concept and don't know it would allow to make stronger with less material, nor the practical use of having stable colony-wide crane. You could move entire buildings that way.

>Yeah, why don't they?
Google "space DART mission" with nearly no gravity holding them together asteroids are NOT solid and compact like underground base.