For the difference in price, it is worth the extra effort of being gentle with it. I don't let anyone else do the rigging.
That sort of routing might work at DC, but I wouldn't trust it above
50c/s. If the phantom is 'official' the telephone people ought to ensure that it is always run on two adjacent pairs; I have even heard of a long route where the phantom signal was on a separate pair for part of the route and only phantomed on the congested bits.My phantom is always in the same cable, so I don't need to worry about the pairs getting separated.