Got the new shaft in 3 days from the folks at Colorado Driveshaft (they are also on Ebay, now) and installed it the next day. Very happy to now be out from under 4 jack stands... I don't care how solid they are, just creeps me out.

Anyway, everything lifted back in as advertised and the binding is now resolved, the noise is gone and I have AWD again for what I hope to be a long time.

Word of caution to those as cheap as me looking to simply rebuild the CV ends of the shaft themselves- my center bearing was still turning smooth but the rubber connecting it to the shaft was all torn up- making it in need of replacing. As far as I can tell, this is NOT A REPLACEABLE PART unless you actually cut the driveshaft..so keep that in mind. You might need the whole shaft instead.