Lots of great information in this thread. Doug thank you for sharing the opinion of the engineers from your work place. That is good food for thought. And Monte we all appreciate you wealth of knowledge and I understand what you are saying concerning applied knowledge vs. theoretical. In my line of work we call is "paralysis by analysis". I am famous in my group for fixing stuff "by ear" and having everything back up and running before the other guys finds the right page in the manual. Lol not to say that hasn't bit me in the butt a few times but live and learn. I stopped in shop sr. on the way to the house last night and took a quick peak at my red charger mentioned early on in this thread. It has the following:

1) Ground lead from passenger head to firewall
2) Ground lead from driver head to k-member
3) Floating ground tied to firewall and d/s frame rail
(this is where all of the MSD, 2-step, tach, etc. ground land)
4) Battery is grounded to stud on p/s rear frame rail
5) Battery + is landed on the starter relay stud. All 12V+ is fed from this point. The alternator also lands here to partially bypass the ammeter.

*frame connectors are welded in*

I know it's not a mega dollar EFI deal and not even a race car but it does get miles and abuse making a good test bed. My point in saying all of this is that even though I have the battery grounded "locally" the car does use all of the other methods that you mentioned. I feel that there is validity in both sides. It's better to design a clean, well thought out system than to chase your tail finding gremlins along the way. Thanks again to all contributors. We are working on rewiring the black Charger and this is a great thread to get the creative juices flowing.