Please ignore the crustiness of my bike in the following pics.
So, I'm looking for a proper rear rack with provisions for panniers as per the thread's suggestions, and I see this bolt where the pannier should attach on the brake side:
Here's the same bolt from the other side:
The derailleur side doesn't have this:
From what I can tell, this doesn't do a whole lot in keeping the rear brake caliper in place. The two bolts on either side of it should do just fine without it. It looks like it'll be fine if I remove it, and I even took off the caliper to make sure it didn't do anything obviously important. It doesn't seem like it does to me, but more eyes on it might find something I'm missing.
Am I good to go with installing a rear rack?