BigO tried that crap on me as well. My dad actually had their crappy ass shocks on his Jeep and we switched them out for the Bilsteins.

Just replace the bushings and you will be fine. Youll notice with the 5100's that when you hit a bump the truck will go down and almost immediately dampen out. If the truck starts bouncing around a bit after a bump...well thats when you get new shocks. The bilsteins will last the life of the truck, hell theyre german engineered!!!

As for the brakes my X has 72K on it with the original rear brakes and only replaced the fronts once at about 60K. I do have a manual tranny so that does help.

Brake pads are like gas mileage. They are very dependant on the way that you drive. If one was cracked that was really really pad and I need to say stupid as the high pitch noise coming from the front end is the wear tab on the inside of pad that will rub against the caliper to let you know to change them out. Dont take chances with the brakes.

Tim