the Ranchero disaster & Brand X update

I've managed to do a little work on the 'car', yes, I'm gonna need a name for it, that may came in time. Took the front ancillary stuff off and the timing cover, changed the chain and sprockets and got the cover back on. That was fun.
I want the stock temp gauge to work so I have to move the aftermarket gauge sender, for this I bought the thermostat housing with the threaded hole on top, but for some reason the adapter for the sender would not thread in. Hummm, I found another adapter that threaded in, but the sender did not fit. Going back and forth I noticed the sender and adapter was not easy to start into where it came out of either, after quite a while going back and forth, even getting my 'el cheap o' caliper measuring thingy I discovered I had cut some of the threads off the adapter so the 'bulb' would stick out into the coolant stream and I didn't trim it straight leaving an errant threat to hang up and not thread in, how I didn't screw up the threads on the intake is unknown. Sometimes you get lucky. Now I can move on to the next task. Maybe.
I have a plan, this plan was a topic of discussion with another stangnet member this afternoon, the 'plan' has been to install the p heads, with long tube headers, that cause problems with spark plug boots, they melt. The 'plan' was to mount the headers to the heads (on the bench) and dent them enough to get some space for the boots, with some extra protection of course, lets call them 'boot condoms', either ceramic or fiberglass condoms should give the boots a chance at life.
This conversation lead to the possibility of getting aluminum heads and got me thinking of the pros and cons. The only con I can think of is cost, I ain't buy'n chinee stuff that I have to sent to the machine shop to verify the springs are good, new springs and install vrs heads I already have?
So this got me thinking, what would be the real pros to aluminum heads, is the cost worth it. To inform myself I went to the dyno to look. Ok, I actually went to Engine Masters series of videos. The real world results are weight. Ok, so there was a couple hp and a couple lbft of torque, that's the real world, of course there are other things that add and subtract figures but for the street, ain't gonna matter. So I'm gonna dent up my good old long tubes and probably get them ceramic coated after, you know, for the thermal advantages, they keep the temps down under the hood right? Less heat on that spark plug wire right? But do they really?
Have not found any tests that actually prove this but it can't hurt and besides my headers look like crap. Oh, and no I am not getting shorty headers that fit the p's, that would be too easy. Besides, this is a 'low buck' build, I need the spare change for other things on 'the car'.
Sorry, no pics. Y'all know what an engine looks like with half the stuff missing, I'll post pics if I actually do something interesting.