The 5.0l was probably the most common Ford truck engine made, simply called the 302 prior to fuel inj. Was used in pretty much all their vehicles at one time or another, especially from 1980 on.
4.6 and 5.4 started being used in 97, with the restyled f150's and light duty f250 that was around...
Those angles actually look pretty much the same as my stock 05. The last pic looks kinda wonky, but it could be the camera angle.
With the bent bar tho, I would kinda think there would be more angle change throughout the susp travel than there would be with a straight bar and dropped bracket...
In terms of the drop pitman, it kinda depends. Technically, you want your track bar and draglink to be on the same angle, with the ends as close to the same point as possible. Icon uses the bent track bar to get around using a drop pitman I would guess, but it must make for some funny angles.
Have had one in mine for a while, seems to be really good. Excellent power, and mileage very much improved over the factory program. I bought the truck used, and it was getting around 15mpg on the hwy, now getting about 19 ish. As stated above, the extra power makes it way nicer to drive also...
I never calculated, as I was running free company fuel, but the onboard comp showed 20ish on the hwy, this was with a prog, intake, and turbo back exhaust.
Oh yeah, this was a 2003 7.3l cc lb 4x4.
My thoughts are that a flat wall crash test is meaningless when you rearend a lifted superduty, or any other truck, and get a nice mouthful of trailer hitch.