Wow, that was a lot of nonsense to read through. I both gained and lost brain cells. Thank you all.
I won a set of EBC Brakes at a rallycross raffle - I have no skin in the game for this recommendation. They sent me a set of extra duty (orange) pads and their dimpled & slotted rotors. While I have no empirical data to add to this discussion, these rotors and pads make a huge difference in braking performance. I take the truck to rallycross and have raced the truck both with the OEM pads/rotors and with the EBC pads/rotors (on OE KO2s w/Enkei wheels). I have received professional coaching and know how to threshold brake. I can absolutely say that the better rotors and pads make a significant difference in braking distance, feel, bite, and repeatability.
I found I could overwhelm the OEM brakes towards the end of a rallycross lap and constantly using 80-90% of the pedal travel to get them to bite both wastes time and gets tiring even over a 60-90 second lap. The EBCs do not suffer from this, the initial bite will buck the truck (OEM springs aka couch floppy mode) hard and provides OEM performance much sooner in the pedal - then you still have more to give. The best part is they don't fade and give you the same feeling time and time again.
A few downsides to note (aka every brake upgrade over OEM):
1) brake dust - no **** sherlock, they dust more. Who cares.
2) brake squeal - the initial break in was loud AF, now they still squeal when they're cold especially when you're only lightly braking. Solution - brake harder and get some heat into them.
3) the ACC is weird - the adaptive cruise was obviously tuned with OEM brakes. Now the truck really bucks suddenly when the ACC tries to intervene, it's caught me off guard a few times.
While not as extreme as Wilwoods or Alcons, for less than half the price (and not worrying about fitment issues) they perform really well. I'm sure a set of SS lines and fluid would also help. My $.02
EBC's high-heat tolerant brake pad and rotor combination able to deliver a strong brake bite even at 1,600F. This EBC Stage 8 Kit includes EBC Orangestuff brake pads and silver grey-coated dimpled and slotted rotors for max heat dissipation.
www.buybrakes.com