A big part of the success or lack of with our Dawn Pluribus strip till units is the toolbar they are mounted to.  For a 12 row it is tough to beat a Moore Built vertical fold bar. They are very fairly priced, heavy duty, new and they work. As I recall the base 30 ft Moore Built bar with gage wheels is in the 10k range which is not bad for what you are getting.

It is heavier than your old planter bar but it is heavier for a reason. Moore Built has lift assist wheel kits available or rent a bigger (3 point lift capacity) tractor. The Montag cart has a version which acts as a lift assist.

In the end this is very often much less expensive than several seasons of dinking around with a toolbar out of the weeds. SCMN06 has some pictures here somewhere of a toolbar and 12 rows.

The current model of the Pluribus is a tillage tool weighing about 600 lb in the most common configuration. This is about 3 times the row unit weight of the original Cyclo planter units that bar was designed for. There are other loads.

The Pluribus units because of their length are sensitive to running out of level. I have been with customers trying to use "economy" toolbars and it was physically impossible to level all row units due to toolbar twist, bending etc. 

As you can see, these units can work well. We did make major row unit changes beginning in January 2007. The older units you have can work well in many conditions but do have some limitations. Good luck with your strip tilling.  jmho.

Jim at Dawn