My econo heads had the built in stands but the original builder milled them off but still used the std. length valves. I replaced the 3/8 valve for 11/32 with longer stems.
The original purple shaft cam was under .500 lift and one of my new cams is .619 so I played it safe with longer valves.
I can't imagine replacing the w2 heads with any popular alloy heads... loose HP to save some weight? Now if you are talking Edelbrock Victor or BA-B1-MC heads that's different but most guys just want to drag along less weight but look the other way when they load up their 275lb. GF....