Regarding the LCA's,

Has anyone but me ever just drilled a couple holes and then bridge the LCA's perpendicularly with cross bolted steel sleeves? Its real easy and adds nearly (though not quite as much) as much strength as welding them with plates. Not everybody had access to a machine shop to fab the plates.... or a welder, not 20 yrs ago, and not in my garage anyway.

Its also a fairly common 'backyard' hop up on gm and ford cars with stamped U type lower trailing arms to add torsional rigidity, dead simple fix with a drill and about $5 worth of materials