The cool thing about a good reliable DD is that you can just have a nice truck and go wild on your project. You can put in some steep gears, a nasty cam, take out all the "luxury" items and it's just badass. My fox, I wouldn't do what I have done to it if it was a DD. I tear it down, or break it, oh well, I have time to fix it. Trust me, I've done both roads, and it's better to leave the DD alone.
With my 90GT, when it started getting "nasty" I got a beater car, a 1993 Grand Am. Having a POS car sucked. I hated that car, so that didn't work.
Got my 02 Silverado when the motor went out on the 90GT. Got rid of the beater.
I had the money before I bought my '88. I was thinking of doing a 6.0 Vortec Max swap into my current truck because everything would just bolt right up. I've seen a truck like mine where they guy had that swap done on a short bed regular cab truck. He had exhaust done, and it was of course progrmammed, but he was eating pullied lightnings with no problem. That truck was nasty, and "stock" for the most part. I even considered a turbo system that I saw on an identical truck like mine that made it run 12.8 in the 1/4. Well, that was all good, but I just wasn't going to have my project be what I depend on. So I got my fox. I don't look back on that.