Fast Eddie, I have noticed in some situations when skipping the top hammer you must perform an early straight jump when the barrel that comes off the ledge and the barrel comes down the ladder before the ledge group together. In this situation, it is actually a lot more dangerous to skip the top hammer. However, when this grouping doesn;t occur it is just as safe as using a proper top hammer technique in my opinion. The thing is, during the course of a game you will inevitably have to early straight jump this combo 5+ times easily. To me this is way way way too risky. However, if you focus on steering barrels on the top down the broken ladder you could create a safer girder to skip the top hammer on, although I personally have never tried this exact technique.