If you are just planning on flying your phantom without the gimbal, feel free to just break them and then replace them with some tie wraps but dont over tighten them. Anyone feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the securing pins are there just to prevent the gimbal from flying off in the event of a hard crash.
The problem I was having was the rear securing pin (I used two in the diagonal pattern as recommended) was hitting the back of the gimbal preventing it from freely rotating. I broke off the rear securing pin and replace it with a tie wrap and called it a day.
With that said, I would highly recommend locking down at least two of the corners with either the securing pins, tie wraps, or a combo of both. I have read at least one posting where the person wrote that they didnt use any at all. To each their own but after downgrading to 1.08 the other night and taking my p2 out yesterday morning, I took at least a half of dozen crashes on both grass and concrete that pulled the white ball stabilizers right out of the gimbal. In one of the crashes the data/power cable was pulled right out as well.
If the tie wrap and securing pins were not there, my go pro and gimbal would probably have been severely damaged. With that said, before going the tie wrap method, I did try and attempt to remove the securing pin with some needle nose pliers and other small sharp objects to get the pin to release but found after about 10 minutes of tedious work I was just damaging it anyway. Just my two cents...