Eng-Tips.com has examined the drawings and construction planning documents that have been released.
Yes. No part of this construction sequence, the explanations to date, the re-tensioning sequence, the traffic below, the installation sequence, and the missing bridge parts (tower, mid-bridge temporary support, cable stays, and selection of material for the trusses) make sense to any professional observer based on the collective experience of the engineers reviewing it.
Do you have any reason to doubt the accuracy of this quote from the latter:
Robert Accetta, the National Transportation Safety Board investigator in charge, said diagonal elements between the bridge’s canopy and deck worked like a truss bridge. But the cables designed to fan out from the column weren’t needed to support the bridge deck, he said.
“As I understand it, these were cosmetic,” Accetta said. “They were not structural members.”
If the quote looks OK to you, maybe you can correct the speculation you cited. For those in the peanut gallery (who I in no way connect to you), this means the pedestal was decorative. One more hint for the unwashed - decorative elements aren't designed to carry structural loads. So they could have included gargoyles in the design and except for their own dead weight, would have no structural affect.