I've already been down this road a few times so I know what you mean, and I don't plan on going to the track until I have a new rear axle in there either.
I was always capable of doing the work, I just wasn't capable of creating a good design from the start not having any experience with performance parts. The really bad part of all this is that I find it very hard to find someone to trust, everybody "thinks" they know what will work good together, or they're a shop that is biased towards selling you something. This is why in the process I've learned to tune, so I understand whats going on and I have control over it. I've pulled tunes off cars or watched most tuners work and I think almost all of them locally are a joke, there are only two I would trust. I wouldn't have learned that if I had not worked at it and learned things on my own from books, videos, and professional tuners.
My story goes on and on because I really am that stubborn, and wanted to know the truth about these things not just some marketing fluff or someone's guess. One of the best lessons I ever learned from my Dad is just this, when I grew up racing Karts we weren't the followers listening to everyone, I didn't go to driving schools, and we didn't spend extra money buying into all the hype. We reasearched what worked, tried some different things, and as a teenager I won a lot of races.