I have never noticed any flex or noise on the S&S couplers. They are greased, so any creaking would be unlikely.

A bike shop manager told me that some people that were not careful with their Ritchey Break Away bikes had some creaking noise where the top clamps are. I do not understand why that would occur, I am only relaying what a bike shop manager said. My road bike has the Ritchey Break Away system. The bike is badged as a Raleigh Grand Prix, but the Ritchey logo is cast into one of the seat bolt clamps, photo below. The way this works is that the rear triangle has a seatpost clamp. The top tube that is separate has a seatpost clamp. So, with seatpost installed, it is solid as the seatpost holds the top tube to the rear triangle. But without a seatpost, the top tube is separate from the rear triangle. That is why it is so hard to visually see a coupler, the seatpost is the coupler. That shop manager told me to make sure I am pressing down on the top tube when I tighten the top tube clamp and tighten that clamp after the other one. You can see part of the Grand Prix model name in the photo.



In the photo you can see a brake cable splitter under the top tube. Cables stay on the bike when split, but you use a threaded spliter to disconnect the two halves of the cables.

Disregard the black tape on the seatpost, this was the first day I had the bike and I was using the tape as a marker while I got things adjusted.