The works described in the current paper correspond to some exploratory advances that were performed by ESTEYCO in close collaboration with IAC on the European Solar Telescope (EST) main structure beyond the conceptual design activities conducted up to 2011, which were taken as the starting point. The works to develop this advanced conceptual design of the EST telescope structure were conducted within a collaboration agreement between ESTEYCO and IAC. The paper presents a brief summary of the main design modification activities that are proposed for the telescope structure, the different methodologies involved including structural, mechanical and aerodynamic performance, the rationale behind the different design change proposals and, finally, a quantitative assessment of the effectiveness of the different design alternatives and modifications in order to provide a consistent methodology to judge the improvement between the different alternatives. In order to have a clear and consistent comparison, it was decided to generate independent Finite Element models from the reference conceptual design. After this assessment, the elevation structure is proposed to undergo several modifications (mainly oriented at the suppression of the rocking-chair like wheels) to improve its structural and mechanical performance. The load transfer path is also changed by modifying the azimuthal radial guides radii in order to have a more direct transfer from the elevation structure to the ground. Some of these modifications are conducted by means of a newly developed in-house program that enables automatizing a series of constrained numerical optimization to improve the structural response.