I've used mine for 5 years and have never had the braid collapse. I took that nylon tube that is inside of it, and I drilled holes in it like a machine gun barrell, and put it back into the braid, which keeps it from getting crushed.
This web pic sort shows what I'm talking about except the one in the plumbing line is white and nylon, I think. You clip off the ends, push the ends of the braid towards each other to loosen, then using needle nose pliers pull out the hose, and drill a lot of hole all through it, then put it back in.
I also have it in a circle using a t-fitting like this;
I often even forget to vorlauf and don't get a lot coming through. Just having the braid free floating may cause the gaps in the mesh to be wider than mine- since the braid is in a sense like the chinese finger trap
on mine the gap between mesh can be adjusted. And mine is pretty tight, almost the original tightness as if I never tore it apart and got the core out and put it back in.
The nice thing about my t-fitting is that it's removable, and at the furthest point from where it is connected to the ball valve it actually touches the bottom of the cooler, so there's also not a lot of deadspace in my cooler, only about 1/2 gallon or so.
The t thingy fits perfectly into the hose ends inside the braid, then I used zip ties (really tiny ones) to hold the braid in place. It's been perfect for like 5 years now.
But with the hose in there, it doesn't compress whatsoever.