I have an Aerogear racket which I'm not using at the moment. A while ago I changed the grip and the little plastic 'hand-guard' thing came loose. I glued it back in place with superglue and it was OK util I played with it and it came loose again. Si mistakenly I removed it from the racket. Does this piece of plastic serve any useful purpose or is it OK to leave it off. Will it upset the balance of the racket without it on?

Probably only a small difference in the balance of the racquet that can be compensated for by the addition of an extra grip.

If you wrap the grip like Sigit (not so extreme though), you might not even notice a difference!

http://www.badmintonforum.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9052