Remember its ship product not shit product.
Yes physics are hard
It's still no real excuse to release something that is obviously intended to be physics based when the physics, the basis of the game, do not work well. Just pull it out of the game design and replace it with something easier to do (springs are easier than ropes and are often called ropes with only a small amount of artistic license) at the moment you have a rigid stick not a rope anyhow :)
I don't see why you are complaining about cartesian and polar coords except in a bullshit baffles brains attempt. Apart from anything else flash doesn't even use polar coords, it lets you rotate things yes, but thats not really the same, any polar coordinates are purely your doing.
I'm sorry if it sounds overly negative but I guess the defensive attempts to confuse with long words annoyed me. Without that I would have just ignored you :)