I think I see where this is going to end up.....
It's your car and your money. Do whatever you want. Despite what you might think, no one here really cares.
FWIW, I deleted my cats about 1000 miles ago. I ran pump gas the first part of that and never noticed a smell. It's really not there with E85. I noticed the spilled tire shine in my trunk yesterday more than gas fumes.
My work had a small car show today for the monthly mixer. It was a fun time. I think my coworkers finally understand what I mean when I say I'm a gearhead. There was voting, but I left before they handed out trophies.
I threw some Boom Mat under the back seat and in the trunk to quiet down the gear noise and it helped. I didn't put it end to end though. Mostly covered the big open areas.
I've always gone with the idea that chambered mufflers go with H pipes and straight through go with X pipes. But my car came with a Bassani O/R and Flowmasters and it actually didn't sound bad. I just preferred my Stingers.
I think the Magnaflows are calm enough they'll work with either style.
I'm not up on the later stuff. I know for the Cobras there's a way to run the relay through the FPDM, but it needs adjustments in the tune. Not all tuners want to deal with that as they already have tunes written.
The easiest way would be to find a key on 12vdc source and triggering a relay...
When I was supposed to run two plates I picked up one of those removable brackets. For a while I was good about putting it back after a show or meet. Eventually it just stayed in the trunk in case I got pulled over. "Oops, I forgot to put it back in place"...
I think you're right as far as pulling the heads. If it was a ring issue I'd think you'd see that plug covered in oil. As mentioned, don't bother looking for 03/04 heads just yet. If your current heads are trashed, sure. But I'm going to guess a good clean up and service will get you right...