I can buy a lot of gas for the price of that crossmember. I would consider it if I had a 4WD and took it wheeling, though. One way to reduce how much the rear axle sticks down is throwing a couple thousand pounds of whatever in the bed to squish the truck down a bit.
I got the dash put back together a while ago. Took 1-1.5 hours using the instructions to work backwards. I now have heat and cold on demand for both sides.
My dad's truck ('02 2500HD Duramax 4WD 4 door) wasn't liking to get very hot when winter rolled around. He stuck a coroplast grille block between the radiator and grille and it's been doing much better. About the only aeromod he's interested in doing. Kinda hard to get a picture of it, he cut out a hole for the tranny cooler to keep the tranny happy.