I've never seen it as the "heritic" although I know what you're sayin. Too many chest thumpers think "Mopar or nuthin" and in some cases they are just plain wrong.
I've always thought the 9" was in the same favor as the early Hemis. They will go good in anything. Looking back at hot rod history, the rear end of choice was the Oldsmobile third member style, before the 9". They were under everything from street cars to early fuel rails.
The 9" has SO many available ratios and upgrades and the parts availability is simply off the scale. They are stupid strong even in stock form. If you use one and have a drive line failure, it probably AIN'T gonna be the rear end.
And of course there's that cool bench racin thing when somebody asks you "Hey Rob, what rear end you got under that?" Somehow when you say "9 inch" it just sounds cooler. lol
