Well.. I think the culprit here is the front axle. For now, I'm ruling transmission and T/C out as I'm not able to establish a relationship between the symptoms and the transmission or gearing itself. The symptoms persist whether I'm in gear or coasting in neutral, forward or reverse, slow or fast, in 4lo or 2wd, etc..

I'm going to start with changing fluid both front and back and see where that takes me. Will post results as soon as I have them...