OK...actually i went ahead and gave it a try. everything works just like you said...except, i get lost where you mentioned the "controls in the modify panel. everything works fine...however the shape(rivot) still retains its local rotation ie: the cylinders are still staight up and down.
i did something like this at work yesterday to line a bunc of skulls around a giant blood fountain, i made the spline , selected the object then in the animation tab >constraints>prath constraints, selected the path, if you scrub the animation slider you should see it follow the path, theres some controlls in the modify…