> So, when can I have my party? When is he finished enough to say that he is
> finished, knowing full well that work will continue?

So I can't tell if you're bragging, complaining or both... : )

Here's a formula for ya:
Lack of enthusiasm x lack of funds + lack of time = finished

I'm wondering why your van is a 'he'; when asked why ships are called 'she',
an old admiral famously replied "Because it costs so much to keep them in
paint and powder..."

In all seriousness, I suppose I would feel that a project of that scale
would be finished when all the systems were in a sort of symbiotic balance:
the drive train is well matched and works as desired as if it were
engineered that way, so now the brakes and suspension need to match up to
the drive train, etc. which of course you've already done. But take it to
its logical end: If you were the ultimate driver/automotive engineer, given
the practical/common-sense box that is the vanagon, how would you design it
and why? I mean from the seats to the instrument layout to the shift knob to
the storage to the etc... I think you'd get to the point where, in a given
system, any additional mods would instinctively strike you as superfluous,
extravagent, redundant or just plain too much.
I've seen a ton of mods on different folks' pages that instantly struck me
as 'epiphanies of commen sense application', if that makes sense. Y'know,
you see it and go 'duh, of course'. Followed by 'why the hell didn't that
occur to me'. I've seen other that make me think 'wtf?'.
If I had the time and money to do it, I'd like to make a project out of a
van to try to arrive at that juxtapostion of intelligent creativity, common
sense and function.

As a matter of fact, it would be interesting if the collective list would
detail the mods they've made, good and bad (and why) along with what they
were trying to achieve, to sort of get the sense of what the ultimate
Vanagon(s) would look like (I'm sure there would be at least three or four
major flavors, by function).

I'm interested in seeing how it turns out.

Good luck,
Robert