I understand from your diagram already. Why would you need pins to connect the vertical poles? Gravity isn't going to let them disconnect, and once you have the tent around the poles, you couldn't disconnect them if you tried, simply because there isn't enough free space to do so. I really don't see this to be an issue at all, and as I said before I've never had any tent that has pins to connect the upright poles in the middle, but then again I usually buy cheap tents and use them for like 5 years then buy a new one, although I have one that has continued to serve me for close to 10-years now. I love me some cheap Ebay tents long time.