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Subscribed. The question always arises in hopeful threads like this, so I'll ask it. Is there a reason you couldn't just get a cheap, efficient car and have a better starting point around 40 MPG? If you find an old (Saturn) SL1 in decent shape, or pick one up with a blown engine and rebuild it, you could probably keep the truck and use the car for your usual commute. I'm not debating that it's nice to have a truck for lots of reasons, but most people don't need them for their daily commute. Of course, it's good to have your tow/haul vehicle be as efficient as possible, but I think it would be hard to get a decent ROI if you didn't drive it very much.
The cool thing about diesels is that more power doesn't have to mean more fuel consumption. You don't have to torture yourself with a 50-70 hp engine if you can find a TDI that makes 140 hp for cheap enough. Huge diesels in trucks are less efficient because there's significantly more internal friction, but as long as you keep a small displacement, you can have an engine that makes just about as much power as you want (thanks to turbos).
As far as aero, it's usually worth the money to lower trucks. If you look underneath, I'm willing to bet that rear differential is sitting right in the windstream. Tucking it up closer to the body almost always helps a lot with efficiency, and lowering springs for your truck can be had for pretty cheap.
Good luck with the job and the truck. I'm interested in seeing how this turns out.
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