That's not so much a problem as a suspension of a different belief. Cyberware isn't possible under current technology; bioware isn't possible; rigging vehicles isn't possible; the nanomachines and gene therapies used in Shadowrun aren't possible; arbitrarily large amounts of storage in absurdly small packages (cybereyes, implanted commlinks) aren't possible... And while to a modern standpoint these are mostly refinements on existing technology, in 1989 these were almost purely fictional. Technology has advanced a great deal further between 1989 and 2006 than it has between 2048 and 2070 under the Shadowrun timeline. In 1989, some of the magical aspects of SR were more realistic than the technological ones.

But if you're going to accept that all those things are possible, why not accept advances in materials science that allow monowhips to exist?

Ok maybe this will work for you: It has been theorized that Buckyballs can be grown around an atom of another material, perhaps by 2070 someone pulled this off, and even managed to do it with a Buckytube. Now maybe the reason that monowire is so blasted expensive is that it is hard to do and is grown around a long strand of some exotic material Like Zirconium or Hafnium (someone who actually has real knowledge of materials might have better candidates).

The short version of the point, is that even given the limitations presented in Canon you might still be able to make it more plausible if you want to try.

There's an older anime that features something similar, "Dominion Tank Police" based off of a Masamune Shirow manga.

The "runners" deployed packs of flat plastic plates from a launcher to slow down some pursuing cops. They lie flat on the ground until run over by something heavy, like a vehicle.

Then they "pop" up into gigantic colorful dildos. I'm serious. Each a good 12 feet long and 3-4 feet wide, expanding to full size with enough force to knock over an armored caar.

As there were dozens on the ground when an entire squad of cop cars plowed into them...




-karma

It is not a question of ability. I see no benefit in trying to suspend my disbelief over something that doesn't make sense to me, when removing the offending item from the game is so much easier.

It could increase the tensile strength of the substance, but it wouldn't make it any more feasible a weapon. It's a handy material for a whole swath of applications, I'm sure, but since it can't cut through anything hard, and even at several times increased tensile strength it would snap before cutting through even much softer items.

Obviously it's possible that there's a sudden breakthrough in material technology and someone comes up with something similar to buckytubes only with hundreds of times increased tensile strength, and hardness as far as shearing other items is concerned -- just like it's possible that we create tiny batteries with near-endless power supply, cold fusion in miniature scale, whatever. To me, that is too incredible to bother with the particular item. YMMV.