Originally Posted by
conomac
I'm worried about this...and that I've significantly weakened the cages by bending/straightening them. The more I have thought about it, the more sense it makes to just get a new derailleur.
The RD cage doesn't have to be all that strong.
It's on the slack side of the chain loop, so the normal load is limited by it's own return spring. There is greater stress on the upper section of some designs, where there's some side load during a shift. On many, however the jockey wheel is mounted directly to the lower body, and the cage us unstressed while shifting. With either design, if you got it reasonably straight so the pulleys are in the same plane, it'll probably last until your next crash.