It all depends on what you want to do. You can even out the truck more so with just shackles then with the AAL. The AAL will give you more of the ass in the air kind of ride. I had both on mine when I had my 03 but it was 2wd so I didn't have the CV's to worry about. It looked great and loved it. The thing is with the shackles you can get away with stock shocks as they don't lift the truck up that much where you might need longer shocks with the AAL's. One thing to remember about the AAL's is that they will settle out so that 2.5" is an estimate in my opionion. (sp?) They have a tendency of flatting as time goes by so the lift goes away.

You can stick with the stock t-bars for a while. You will get good use out of them. I believe that most of the guys here go for the bigger ones when they add a front bumper and winch to the front ends. Also you can only go so far on them before you will need to reindex them but that will be later down the road for ya which is pretty easy.

I also sent you another pm in regards to that question about that off road shop.