Well, the Y thing has some pretty long internodes and little taper. It's actually very close to reverse taper.
You need to weigh the possible end product against the opportunity cost in working with the "real tree" at the bottom - where you could be healing wounds and not getting similar reverse taper going there.
I don't think we discussed in the original thread
http://forum.bonsaitalk.com/showthr...=&threadid=6238
what kind of tree this is?
Regards,
Matt