holy cow, i think i nearly had a tear-up reading this.... that really means a lot to me, mark. thanks for sharing that! we're all in this thing together, so i am glad that it helped you to not go through the same mistakes that i made.
being able to get it back, AND have my wife's blessing was really critical, because yes, it's going to be entirely different this time around. and, ironically, proof positive of that is the fact that it's basically not been touched (other than to move it and keep things working) for 5-6 months.
i have some potentially outlandish plans for it, but we'll see what happens when i dive into rust repair and other things. i have to get my son's car done first, then get this new 2004 ZHP refreshed, and i have a manual swap for my E91 M Sport planned as well.... the E91 will likely go up on BaT or C&B though once that's done. i really like it, but it's no ZHP. who knows, maybe after the manual swap i'll really dig it. it's uber-rare though - they made just 102 E91 M Sport RWD autos, and 48 E91 M Sport RWD manuals, for the north american market. and 2 manuals in space gray over oyster. so it'll be 1/3, sorta.
anyway. thanks for the nice note!!