The heatpipes that I mentioned, the "self caliberating" ones, are currently used in production HSFs such as the thermalright xp120. One can build his/her own heatpipe. A guide is here: err... can't find it. Give me some time.....
cotdt: your idea is realized in Zalman's passively cooled cases (TNN-500). I've always wanted to try to build such a system, but simply haven't had the time. I thought that I'd mention that one heatpipe branching into many smaller heatpipes is not efficient as it would add thermal barriers and thus hurt performance.
About the skythe: I'd have the pelt sandwhiched between two Cu plates. One can obtain an NCU 200 here:
http://www.performance-pcs.com/catal...oducts_id=2049
I believe that such a HSF could passively cool a CPU (venice core at low clock speed) if it is properly positioned in a case with two 12cm fans.
Ls7: flourient is an excellent choice with one cavet: the price is insane. I thought the goal of this was to keep everything inexpensive.
Sorry for the incoherent ranting. I drove home from Chicago yesterday. One man, ~1200 miles, and one day.....