I'm not worried about being singled out. You make good points without being an ***. You've been a good advisor to me so far on this site and I appreciate it.
I actually would pony up the bucks for a race block. Truth be told if and when I do get budget to do this build I'll still consider that route. No reason I couldn't put my all forged recip assembly into a race block right? However, the race blocks tend to be unicorns or very cost prohibitive at the least. One begins to look at other options. For example just going with a late model engine to begin with. The most recent iteration if the hemi head makes huge flow numbers.
