I have not made the analytical check you refer to, and I may well make it as well, program, closed form or whatever. Yours is certainly as well a welcome advice, since it may shorten effort and clarify the sooner the matters. Anyway, I certainly am (not in relation with the post only) trying to investigate the use of the advanced FEM tools to learn more about their usefulness, so anything is worth the try in such intent; not to forget that FEM is not but other mathematical procedure leading solution to the mechanical problem, and hence the insight gained through the programs is as valid as the way you suggest once you manage to produce a valid model and analysis. That this may be more difficult I agree and that is the struggle.
Respect the second statement, once the loads are imparted in one specific way to one structure, in my view the main requirement is that the energy of deformation invested in the structure stays at the minimum value at which it can get in equilibrium with the loads. If, coming from a previous structure, we add the stiffeners, the structure is now different, and so even if subject to the same loads it *** might *** turn out that the minimum energy of deformation happens for some enhanced responses in some terms and less response in others, when compared to the ones they had prior to adding the stiffeners.
So even if in general reasonable addition of structural material may be in concordance with a decrease of the interesting responses -as seems be the case with the addition of the stiffeners from the latest analyses I have-, I think it is not neccesarily warranted that a particular kind of response decreases when the shape of the structure gets changed even with some thought to be reasonable addition of structural material.
A correct mechanical solver must be able to identify the equilibrium, that needs be in satisfaction of the minimum energy of deformation, and for such cases show an unexpected increase of some particular response; it is the integrated amount of energy of deformation that must stay minimal, no their component terms.