Hm, I paid $75 for mine too. Course that was with struts and V8 front springs too...
Anyway, you want tips, well here's a couple.
1. The spindle is hard as hell to get off the ball joint. When I did mine I supported either side of the spindle with blocks of wood and knocked the ball joint stud through with a large punch and a BFH.
2. Also the bolts holding the strut to the spindle are pretty hard to budge too. However if you heat the nuts with a propane torch and then hit them with an impact wrench, they should come off fairly easily.
3. The factory Torx bolts on the 2.3L calipers suck, and they're hard to get off. Make sure you have a big enough Torx bit (the bolts on mine had a round head with no hex) and if they don't budge, stop and heat the bolts with a torch (people like to put loctite on caliper bolts so you gotta melt it out). Once you get those bolts out, throw them far away.
Other than that...it's all really straightforward. I take it neither of you guys are switching to V8 struts? (if you are I have a tip to go with that as well)