Jonathan:
Great review. It is nice to hear about some real world experience.
Regarding the reverse lockout issue, I noticed the same 'tightness' shifting into reverse. Added a couple of washers to the detent housing to raise it slightly, taking some of the pressure off the detent spring. This seems to have solved the problem, although I have not driven it enough to know for sure. Here is link to a post.
http://www.gt40s.com/forum/215607-post113.html
So just in passing, would you do anything different now that you know what you know?
Chuck