A bit of tech for you instead of an opinion.
When you have the installer put your gears in, tell them you don't want them to use a crush sleeve. Tell them to make an appropriate sized shim instead.
The point is that once the rear end is setup properly with a shim, you can pull it appart yourself and put it back together yourself any time you want and don't have to worry about screwing up the backlash. That and the fact that any shop that is compitent enough to actually make a proper shim will setup the rear end correctly so you wont have any gear whine.
The crush sleeve doesn't have anything to do with backlash, it just effects pinion bearing preload.
The crush sleeve doesn't have anything to do with backlash, it just effects pinion bearing preload. It doesn't even effect how deep the pinion gear is in the housing; the depth of the pinion gear is set by a shim which is fitted underneath the pressed on bearing. The crush sleeve is there because you have to tighten the bearings to different specs depending on if they are used or new - with just a spacer collar instead of a crush sleeve you wouldn't be able to change the rotational drag of the pinion gear (the preload), so if you changed bearings you would somehow have to make a new spacer and get the preload just right with it torqued all the way down. Also, if you over torque it too much you will ruin the bearings and races, so that would suck also.
I have never seen or heard of anybody using spacers instead of a crush sleeve, it just doesn't make sense when a crush sleeve is so easy to use and so cheap to change out if you need to.
BTW, if the pinion depth doesn't change, and you have the gears set to the proper backlash, then you SHOULD be able to pull the carrier out without replacing or changing those shims at all anyway - but often times the carrier races, bearings and shims go bad, especially if the carrier isn't properly loaded into the housing, or if the end caps go bad.
EDIT: also, just because you get everything into spec (ford, gear manf., or whoevers) doesn't mean there won't be SOME whine and/or vibration at varying speeds. There is a lot more to rear end setup than just getting things into spec numbers wise; much of it has to do with feel and look of things as well. Hell, stock gears vibrate like a mofo over 150
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