at some pont, every beekeeper should see what bees do without foundation at all. once you see this, the idea of alternating drawn frames and foundationless frames makes less sense.
the bees work on more than one comb at a time, forming a cluster that spans the workspace. the festooning we are used to seeing when bees are drawing foundation is (as my wife puts it), "in sheets". but without foundation (or alternating combs), the cluster looks much more like a swarm cluster.
ideally (at least for us) most comb is drawn in the broodnest, and we've had much better luck with a cluster of drawn comb and letting the bees build comb outside of that. when we add a box to the broodnest, we generally move the middle 3 frames from the old (occupied) box up to the middle of the new box, with the rest being foundationless (and we put the 3 foundationless frames that came out of the top box between the brood and the honey stores in the old box). this allows the bees to cluster around the brood, and to expand the broodnest as necessary. spreading out the brood is a huge waste of energy for the bees.
i've never had a problem with the strength of the popsicle sticks, and we recycle them (we use them for honey tastings at the market, and then they end up as comb guides).
some combs get well attached, others do not. according to jurgen tautz ("the buzz about bees", this is (at least in part) to allow the comb to expand and contract and still vibrate properly (remember, the dances happen in the dark, it's the vibration carried through the comb that is what the bees "hear").
if your goal is to get attachment on all sides (i don't have any trouble extracting unwired deeps that are not fully attached in a tangential extractor), one of the "old ways" is to turn the frames (or the whole box) upside down. the bottom becomes the top, and must be attached by the bees. you can read about such things in old copies of "abc of bee culture"..which btw, i found the other day as a downloadable pdf on google books!
http://thecompleteidiotsguidetobeekeeping.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=93:free-old-books&catid=73:beekeeping&Itemid=92deknow