Finally got started on this this weekend. Installed my coilovers, new front springs, struts yesterday, then went against popular consensus and went for the hole saw method in back.
6 hours later... I have my old bars out! It could have been a 2-3 hr job, but I spent an hour measuring, marking, jacking, measuring again. All was going good, until I broke the 3/8 taps in my old t-bars. I spent most of the day dealing with that. Too tired to put the new bars in now. I will be taking them to a machine shop to have them drilled and tapped by a pro tomorrow!
If I could rewind, I would have just removed the spring plate covers or dropped the entire rear suspension, as suggested. Why am I so hard headed?