So I've read the tutorial for getting the cover out: drill a shallow hole, fasten a screw, rip it out using brute force or a dent puller.

Here's my question: why not just drill a hole just smaller than the opening on the carb body instead of a small hole? If I drill it out big enough whatever is left of the cover should just crumble, right? Or at the very least, I'll be able to adjust the screw without needing to worry about a thin border of "cover" that is left over.

What am I missing?

Thanks!

If you could drill thru the plug with a large enough drill and not manage to take half of the screw head with it... yeah.

But, more than likely, you won't.

Had a guy bring his bike to one of my wrenching sessions that tried to drill it out and pull it out with a screw that failed.  I used the dremel to hollow out the plug, neither breaking the edge or the bottom out.  I then chucked a end mill into a drill motor and pressed it into the hollowed out plug, it sucked it up and spun it out lickety split.

How about a center drill?? Self stopping sort of.

It was very easy to remove, following EssForty's tutorial http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1221818822   I used a 3/32" bit and drilled 1/8" deep. Took a coarse drywall screw and lopped off the tip then screwed it into the brass plug. Clamped my vice grips on the plug, strung some cord around the vice grips and used a 5lbs. mallet as the weight to pop the plug out in one swipe. A brick or anything else with a bit of weight will work as easily   It took less then five minutes.