The heat from the foot well and the loss of power definately sounds like a plugged cat. The front end clanking could be the sway bar bushings. Reach behind a front wheel and see if you can move the sway bar bac and forth. If it moves, you need to replace/fix the pushings. The links also get loose sometime and make a lot of racket. Sorry, but can't help out on the MTX tranny issues.
