OK, it's kind of ridiculous, but I was aspleep
, and I got up for some water. Then I thought "hey- I think I'll install my shifter..." So I did.
Followed Kingpin's (thanks for that, BTW) small-plate how-to and everything went smoothly. The oringinal bolts were indeed long enough for me to use the plastic piece on the underside of the tower- EXCEPT for the lower right bolt- the one that holds the reverse lockout tab. For this, I found a (5x55mm IIRC) bolt that would (barely) pass straight through the embedded nut in the plastic piece. I then used a matching 5mm nut to tighten it down. The whole process took about 35-40 minutes- IF you don't count the 20 min that I spent looking for that one bolt!
Honestly, the hardest part was hammering in that damned pin!
Went for a quick test drive, and I must say that it does feel much more "crisp"- especially the 2 & 4 shifts- those 2 DO seem a LITTLE shorter than the 1 & 3; the 5 feels ALMOST as short as the 2/4. I do seem to hit the tower on the bottom ones too, though. I don't think it's the plastic piece though. On my test drive, I went without the boot in place, and I could see the shifter *tapping* the tower on the 2/4 shifts.
I was kinda leery at first, but I also removed the centering spring. Guys, just do it, because it kinda feels like it's stilll there anyway. You'll save yourself some teeny-tiny, cramped-space hacksaw/dremel work, too.
Rowing through the gearbox before the test drive, I thought I was having 99SVT's same problem, but it turned out that I hadn't snapped the bottom linkage on all the way- I gently took some pliers to squeeeeze it together and *CLICK* nice crisp shifts.
Anyone else break the mounts to the e-brake boot when you took out the center console?
...oh well, another thing to waste some time on I suppose. How DO you remove the e-brake handle, BTW?
Sorry so long-winded,
Happy shifting.
). 
Yay! 
2002 F150 SuperCrew