Little late for a reply, but figured I'd chime in if somebody else comes across this thread.

I did the 4x4 vs 2x4 research when I got my 2002 F350. Wound up going with a 2x4 as I didn't want to deal with the maintenance that comes with the 4x4s. One thing I didn't know, though, is that the front brakes are different between the 2x4s and 4x4s. All those spiffy performance rotors you see for the F350s are only if you have a 4x4. The rotors on the 2x4s are part of the hub. If you want to replace the rotors you have to replace the whole hub. I've done it. The brakes on the truck I bought had a vibration (turned out one of the calipers had completely frozen slide pins) and I figured it would be an easy task just to swap rotors. Wrong. It wasn't too bad, but swapping a hub is much more than just swapping rotors. I did use new bearings when I did the job so the front end should be good for as long as I own the truck.

David