Jim;

I've been thinking about this and was going to say something along the lines of what Eric said...but then I thought about it a bit more and said to myself...if you are going to make and install a new pick-up tube, you are going to have it in your hands anyway, so if the reason not to contact tube to tank bottom is not to block flow into a squared off tube, then why not make it even simpler and make it so the tube CAN be close, but it wouldn't even be a problem if it was in contact with the bottom, because it is profiled, so even contact wont block fuel flow, and you can get every last bit on the bottom...this is what I meant:

Cheers

PS. Please document inside of Tank and your work with some pix...I'm sure I'm not the only one interested in having a close look!