Hmm... y'know, this has provided me with a reason to return to Sonic Heroes for a little while. I put it on hold in favour of '06, to play something different from a while. But yeah, this sounded too interesting to hold up on. And I've also gotta try the Chaotix wall thing still, which I haven't done since Marth posted the vid on how to do it Xp
One thing I found intriguing was, there is a piece of the invisible floor you stand on before getting into the elevator shaft that sticks out into it. So, you can actually land and take off again if you're low on the flight guage, without having to go back inside and get back out to the shaft. Shame that it still doesn't allow you to reach the balloon, so I would have to agree with JB that 462 is the limit here. I'll probably make a vid of my own at some point showing this piece of the floor you can stand on while still having free access to the shaft.
**EDIT: OKs... with how tedious my method of recording videos from my X-Box 360 is for me, I've chosen not to for now. Instead, I've taken a picture of the screen with Team Rose standing on that piece of the invisible floor I was talking about:
Click here for picture.
The spot isn't too far away from the inside area, but it isn't too big, so you have to be careful.
Also, as you can see here, I've got 450 rings. I actually managed to get 453 before I 'chickened out'. A few times, in pursuit of getting the second monitor and the further back rings of the 12 loose ones, I went too far into the shaft and couldn't return, generally leading to inevitable death. However, I am wanting to experiment something with the proper entrance to the elevator shaft, since one time I was able to save myself by landing there. The invisible floor you go on to get out there blocks getting back in this way, or at least it seems to, but I think there may be a way to get back in if you land here. Maybe with this, I can try getting more rings, with having some more courage to venture out.