These are indeed incendiary words, and they were used to make a point, but certainly not to make a personal attack, so I apologize if it came off that way.
My point in using language like this was to illustrate how others may perceive you and your business if word of the "Virtual Tony" gambit got out. It's not fun to see things like this written about you, and it can kill your business.
In my experience there are two kinds of clients that don't pay on time: clients that genuinely want to pay but can't for a legit reason, and clients that have no intention of paying you and will do anything to weasel out of it.
It's the latter that could really use the "Virtual Tony" against you if it ever came to light. These are bad people anyway, and by doing something dishonest in return you are just giving them more ammunition to get away with it.
Did you happen to catch the case of Carl Herold on Reddit a month or so ago? He had a deal go south with a client and the guy smeared him all over the internet and almost ruined his business. [1]
In that case, Carl was in the right and still had all kinds of harm done to him because of a disgruntled client. Imagine if Carl had pulled the "Virtual Tony" on this guy. I'm guessing Reddit wouldn't have jumped to his aid to help him out because they would've seen him as dishonest.
To your point, you are certainly justified in following up with a client if you're not getting paid. And I certainly think there's validity to the idea that a third party, good cop/bad cop relationship could help things turn out better for everyone in the end.
What I totally disagree with is making that person up and impersonating him or her to your client. It's a bad road to go down and not worth the potentially devastating hit your reputation would take if it got out.
1- http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/ckcjc/reddit_can_...