On my body (96 model, WDBJ20F8TJxxxxxx), the motor can be removed with the regulator in the door. There is a hole to access the top motor bolt, and the other two are exposed.

I suppose that you could do such a thing with the regulator in place. The hard part would be grooving the top and bottom of the guide jaw to ensure that the reinforcing wire can't slip, but this could probably be done with a dremmel or small die grinder.

It really seems to me that there should have been a metal band around this assembly from the start. I didn't specify this in the original post, but I put the reinforcing wire between the regulator cable and the regulator itself, so it covers open area of the small groove. I hope that makes sense. I really should have taken some pictures.