Explosion Force not working : Unity3d

Have you ever read the old-and-good-but-no-more-available FPS Tutorial? It has a "dead replacement" code that works with explosions too: the explosion first calculates the damage according to the distance and applies it to each hit object (what gives the victims chance to die), and only then the explosion force is applied. Since the ApplyDamage function replaces the object with its dead replacement when it dies, the explosion force is applied to the ragdoll, not to the character.

Just for convenience, these are the scripts that do the magic:

1) CharacterDamage.js - this script applies damage and, if the character dies, replace it with the dead replacement ragdoll:

 var hitPoints = 100.0;
 var deadReplacement : Transform;
 var dieSound : AudioClip;
 
 function ApplyDamage (damage : float) {
     // We already have less than 0 hitpoints, maybe we got killed already?
     if (hitPoints <= 0.0)
         return;
 
     hitPoints -= damage;
     if (hitPoints <= 0.0)
     {
         Detonate();
     }
 }
 
 function Detonate () {
     // Destroy ourselves
     Destroy(gameObject);
     
     // Play a dying audio clip
     if (dieSound)
         AudioSource.PlayClipAtPoint(dieSound, transform.position);
 
     // Replace ourselves with the dead body
     if (deadReplacement) {
         var dead : Transform = Instantiate(deadReplacement, transform.position, transform.rotation);
         
         // Copy position & rotation from the old hierarchy into the dead replacement
         CopyTransformsRecurse(transform, dead);
     }
 }
 
 static function CopyTransformsRecurse (src : Transform,  dst : Transform) {
     dst.position = src.position;
     dst.rotation = src.rotation;
     
     for (var child : Transform in dst) {
         // Match the transform with the same name
         var curSrc = src.Find(child.name);
         if (curSrc)
             CopyTransformsRecurse(curSrc, child);
     }
 }

2) Explosion-Advanced.js - this script is attached to the explosion prefab: when the explosion effect is created, the damage is applied in the right order to the neighbor objects:

 var explosionRadius = 5.0;
 var explosionPower = 10.0;
 var explosionDamage = 100.0;
 var explosionTimeout = 2.0;
 
 function Start () {
     
     var explosionPosition = transform.position;
 
     // Apply damage to close by objects first
     var colliders : Collider[] = Physics.OverlapSphere (explosionPosition, explosionRadius);
     for (var hit in colliders) {
         // Calculate distance from the explosion position to the closest point on the collider
         var closestPoint = hit.ClosestPointOnBounds(explosionPosition);
         var distance = Vector3.Distance(closestPoint, explosionPosition);
 
         // The hit points we apply fall decrease with distance from the explosion point
         var hitPoints = 1.0 - Mathf.Clamp01(distance / explosionRadius);
         hitPoints *= explosionDamage;
 
         // Tell the rigidbody or any other script attached to the hit object how much damage is to be applied!
         hit.SendMessageUpwards("ApplyDamage", hitPoints, SendMessageOptions.DontRequireReceiver);
     }
 
     // Apply explosion forces to all rigidbodies
     // This needs to be in two steps for ragdolls to work correctly.
     // (Enemies are first turned into ragdolls with ApplyDamage then we apply forces to all the spawned body parts)
     colliders = Physics.OverlapSphere (explosionPosition, explosionRadius);
     for (var hit in colliders) {
         if (hit.rigidbody)
             hit.rigidbody.AddExplosionForce(explosionPower, explosionPosition, explosionRadius, 3.0);
     }
     
     // stop emitting particles
     if (particleEmitter) {
         particleEmitter.emit = true;
         yield WaitForSeconds(0.5);
         particleEmitter.emit = false;
     }
     
     // destroy the explosion after a while
     Destroy (gameObject, explosionTimeout);
 }