Alex read your tag line mate.
Point 1 this is why nasa is keen to go it comets to findout exactly what makes them tick. Here is the Whipple paper from 1949 you keep talking about.
http://adsabs.harvard.edu//full/seri...00375.000.html read it
Now what the new data is doing is filling this detail and answering some of the questions raised by Whipple in not completly trashing the hypothesis.
Point 2 try low gravity.
Point 3 the plasma model as you have explained it would have the tails pointing in radome directions, but this isn't what we see.
The Whipple model needs refinement the fact that it was defined before space flight I'd say it was an example of first class science based on the know facts at the time. The fact that new facts mean it needs to be adjusted, well that's called science.
See you on the dance floor Alex.