John, your observations are spot on.
I've spent the last two months working on my GTD and it looks like there will be years of projects to follow. Most, thankfully not really necessary. My wife had her first ride in it yesterday and she loved it—especially the 4" wide 5-point racing harness. Somehow it gave her the feeling she was safe (

).
Glad to see that things have worked out for you after the RF mess. You car looks like a very nice "project car". I hope you'll do us all the favour of posting more photos of it in the gallery section.