Orbit of cargos launched from lunar mass drivers

The original O'Neill lunar mass driver launched horizontally from the
lunar near side to the Earth Moon L2 point.

Mike Combs provided this link which shows the path of the projectile.

http://ssi.org/assets/images/Ch08p150.gif

This has two disadvantages:
1. The launch has to be in the lunar eqatorial plane, which limits
launch sites to the equator.
2. When the cargos pass the L2 point, they leave the Moon's orbit and
enter into an Earth orbit, unless caught by the catcher. This would
pose a hazard to High Earth Orbit Infrastructure.
3. The cargos hit the catcher with velocity - I've heard 70m/s.

The original orbits were probably calculated when mass driver designs
were 10km or so long. Later designs were 160m long. Given that,

Would it be possible to:
1. Launch the cargos almost vertically, towards the L1 point, with
just below the velocity required to reach L1. (Almost - because we
need to account for coriolis forces as the moon rotates around the
Earth)
2. Catch the particles in a catcher suspended about a 1,000 km below
L1.

At L1, a satellite solar power station would beam the electricity down
to the mass driver(s) on the moon. The catcher is suspended below
this.

This means that
1. The cargos would always remain in lunar orbit, and if they missed
the catcher they would impact the moon
2. They would arrive at the catcher with virtually zero velocity, as
the catcher would be at the apex of the trajectory.

So,
- Is this possible?
- Would it increase the range of potential launch sites?
- What is the delta V from lunar surface to L1? (it should be below
escape velocity)
- If the cargo just misses the catcher, would the cargo then impact on
the moon?
- Is this a better design than the original?