LEGO Techniques - One from the Kids

I've handed down my LEGO addiction to my children.  They are avid builders, even the two year old who can manipulate most pieces well.  The kids have their own collection of LEGO pieces that I try not to freak out about when something gets broken or when the vacuum gets hungry.  They're certainly not going to be getting any chromed minifigs or dark blue arch bricks or light grey boat riggings.  But I try to make sure they have a healthy collection.  Every once in a while I'll look in their bucket to see what they've been playing with.  Sometimes it's just an odd (artistic?) mish mash of plates wildly stuck together to create some sort of base for a house.  Other times it's the simplest little connections that make me stop and think.

I don't know who did it but I saw a connection the other day that I've been pondering over since then.  Three little pieces gave me enough pause to consider all the options.  Piece 1, a 1x2 Technic brick with 2 pin holes.  Piece 2, a Technic half pin, stuck into one of the holes of the brick.  Piece 3, a 1x1 plate with headlight clip plate snapped onto the half pin.  The beautiful thing about this is that the headlight plates will not usually sit flush on anything due to the clip.  However the end of this clip was sitting over top of the second hole in the Technic brick which allowed the whole bit to sit snug.  Brilliant.  Of course, this would work perfectly well with the back of a headlight brick too.

Then there's the resulting spacing of the studs.  The side of the headlight plate acts like a stud and is 3/4" plate (1.2mm) lower than the brick.  For those who study SNOT, this should already be known.  Since the stud is also technically embedded in the brick, it's about a half plate (1.6mm) closer than usual which means no straight stacking.

But since the clip of the headlight plate is hollow, it can accept a bar.  This bar will be closer than usual to the brick than it would for, say, piece 2921.  The handle brick holds the bar at exactly one stud away from it's base, same as would happen for a typical 1x1 plate with open clip.

This might allow you a nice subtle detail that would work in harmony with the aforementioned handle brick. The difference is not much but you can see it in this shot.  You get a little bit of a bow effect that would look nice with a 1x6 fender plate over it.  I have none so I did my best with what I could find.

How uncreative am I?  It looks like a jail cell so I'll finish it off as such.  Where are all my dark bley tiles, anyway?