Mainly, I want to do it so that the cables won't be any longer than absolutely necessary. I'm pretty handy with a soldering gun and I'm no stranger to electronic work. As far as round cables nullifying the signal quality, there is a way around that. I fly R/C aircraft, and signal quality is a big issue there. Most of the cables in the onboard radio systems are flat (they only have 3 wires though, as opposed to 80) and the flat wires can cause interference in each other because of the fact that any wire that has an electrical current running through it produces a magnetic field (which can cause an electrical current in nearby wires). What we do is remove one connector, separate the wires, and BRAID them. This eliminates the interference. I want to do the same thing with IDE and power cables. I don't know about modifying IDE cables though, I thought it might be easier to buy the parts.
Wabbit season! Duck season! AMD season! INTEL season!
Hmmmph--whatever...