Unless you want to polish the bare metal up why bother stripping/sanding or anything like that? Just key up the surface as it is and spray away. Depending how good a job you want to do you can either remove the pistons and seals and everything or take the easy option and just mask up those areas and be careful when spraying.
Can I just point out... £2499 and it weighs 10.5kg? For that money (and for a bike designed purely for comps) I'd expect it to be closer to 9-9.5kg... Maybe that's just me though.
Most companies will simply consult a materials property chart when chosing what material to use for a component. They may have carried out some FEA on the designs to find out the likely stress raisers and highlight any possible design flaws but beyond that it's down to testing (probably on a bike using prototype components if at all) before going into production. Ti axles have been used for years on square taper BB's and in BMX uses but there aren't many (if any) that have been used on ISIS.
I hear you. I don't want to offend anyone but it does seem like the majority of people who are 'depressed' have no clinical or psychological problem at all yet the first thing the doctors do is get them on some drugs... I know there are real cases of proper depression which need treated but it seems similar to ADD- 'Your child's acting up (because you're a shit parent)? Yeah that'll be ADD- here's some Ritalin' as opposed to 'You're feeling a bit sad? You're depressed- here's some sweet ass drugs to f**k your head up a bit more'.
I thought the Kabuki was 116 for some reason... If you have one, trialserboi, just measure the distance between the dropouts. It'll be one of those two within a few mm.
High Rollers and Blue Grooves are really heavy and slow rolling so depends what you want. If you're not doing natural I'd probably go for something like a Moto Digger or Holy Roller on the back and a Moto RT on the front. I've been running a 2.4 RT on the rear and 2.2 RT on the front for the past year or more and find them fine for everything except natural. They don't have much puncture protection but with 30 odd psi in them (and cheap ass Tesco tubes) I don't get that many flats...