If you are concerned about the number of parts, you could easily do away with the Esbit stove and the pot stand and pick up one of Smokeeater908's rollover stoves. It is an alky stove and weighs 6 g. I have one of these as well, and if I were to swap the Esbit stove and pot stand for the Rollover stove, the set up would be 1 g lighter, and have one less part. However, these are pretty essential parts to a cook kit, so eliminating them would be devastating to the kit as a whole. I choose to keep the Esbit in this set-up because it is more fuel efficient that the Rollover stove and the fuel weighs less. Of course though, YMMV.
As well, you don't need to carry the cup/bowl if you don't want, I like to have it though, and at less than 3 oz for everything, I feel it is not weighing me down. The lightload towel is used to both dry the pot out after use, as well as a pot grabber since the pot doesn't have handles.
As far as using it in high winds, a wind block is also an important aspect to using a stove, especially when it comes to alky or Esbit stoves. So I would get behind a tree, a rock, a fallen log, of if there are shelters on the trail, go inside one of them. There has been a few times where I had to sit in front of the stove and kind of huddle around it to help block wind. I have never had my items blow away though.
To answer your questions:
1. It is a 24 oz can, but good luck finding these now. The Foster's Ridgeline cans would probably be your next best bet.
2. The pot stand I have is made from Hardware Cloth. I bought a big roll from Lowe's for around $18.
I am not so sure about suspending the pot over the stove using a ti stake. I guess it could work, but with this you have to be sure the pot is the correct height over the stove to get the most efficiency. (With Esbit, I have found the sweet spot to be about 1.75 inches from the top of the tablet to the bottom of the cook pot.) Also, if you plan to suspend these types of cook pots (cans) over the stove the windscreen will then be quite tall, and won't fit in the can when packing up, not too mention, it will probably be heavier due to the size of the windscreen. As well, I would worry about the windscreen becoming top heavy and then toppling over. When using alky stoves especially, a reliable, stable set-up is a very good idea to prevent accidental fires. If you were suspending the can, then the surface you were setting up on would have to be absolutely flat, otherwise the pot would tilt to level up inside the windscreen and would be unsafe.
If you would like though, you could use a shorter windscreen (such as the one I have) and poke holes in it to slide the ti stakes through and create a pot stand. This way the cook pot would rest on top of the stakes, and apply downward pressure to the windscreen, which would also help to hold the windscreen in place. However, here again, you need to make sure that you poke the holes at the correct height so that you get the correct distance from the fuel to the bottom of the pot. (I have actually done this with one of my other set-ups and it works well. I used the ti foil from Ti Goat to build the windscreen.)
3. I really wanted to try one of Steve's windscreens, and I like that it is small enough to fit inside the cook pot. IIRC, the cones from Trail Designs will not fit inside the cook pot and requires an additional caddy to store the windscreen in, unless you roll the screen up with your sleeping pad as others have. I preferred to have the entire kit all together though, and as compact as possible (while being as light as possible!) Don't get me wrong though, I am not knocking the cones, I have a sidewinder cone for a different set-up and it is an awesome product! As far as efficiency though, I can easily get as much as 3 cups of water to a boil when using this system with a single, 0.5 oz Esbit tablet. That is plenty efficient with me considering I only need 2.5 cups at the most.
4. When I carry this set-up, it generally rides in the top of my pack, where less damage is likely. (Also, I am not rough with my packs, I do not throw them around or abuse them, but I don't necessarily baby them either. I use it as I need to and that is it.) However, don't be fooled, the Heine pots are not super fragile like a straight sided can is, they are actually quite tough (and for this reason it sucks that they have been pulled and no longer made). The ridges in the pot make it super strong (considering what it is). Taking this into consideration with the fact that all of the items are also inside the pot, which helps keep the pot from getting completely squished if something does happen to press against the side, it is actually pretty safe. However, the top is the weakest spot since it has been cut out to make the pot. To counter this, the bowl I use fits right over the top of the pot, which protects it even more. So, when it is all packed up, it is pretty rigid and not easily damaged.
Anyway, I hope this helps some. I know that there are a lot of different ways to put together kits (trust me, I have a lot of them…) and I am not saying that mine is the best. However, what I have put together with this kit is what I like to use because it works for me and my needs, and considering it is less than 3 oz for an entire kitchen set-up, well, that is light no matter how you look at it!
Anyway, good luck with creating your own system! That is most of the fun…
