I read your addition on the Wikipedia article: good job.

Personally, though, I thought the phenomena was driven mostly by thermal x-ray flux diffusing out of the fireball. As the x-rays pass into the ends of the cables and are scattered, the cable heats up, vaporizes, etc. This creates the characteristic cone shaped expansion wave--which is really caused by the fast expansion of plasma. In high speed photography, these 'rope trick' plumes race away from the edge of the fireball by many times the speed of expansion. This is not a shock driven phenomena but a radiation driven phenomena!