Ottermn,
My 07 Ram 3500 was a beast after i installed an Edge Juice with attitude tuner, i did install an intake system and a dpf back exhaust, i picked up 3-4mpg from stock so after 6 years it paid for itself several times over. I left emissions equipment on the truck, one because if you live in an area where you need to pass smog, you can be ticketed for removal of that stuff. As far as the regens go, my truck was normaly on the freeway towing so very rarely did it go through a regen cycle, if i did alot of in town driving, stop and go, it seemed it was always in regen. I just traded my 07 off on a new 2013 Ram 3500 dually, and plan on installing another Edge Juice unit, one reason i like them is they do not actualy reprogram.the ecu on your truck, the unit itself modifies the signals from various sensors and changes them.before they go to the stock ecu, you can keep stock timing or change it as well. I really liked being able to monitor different temps on engine, transmission exhaust gas temps and boost, my old unit only had four screen monitor, the new units have color screens and i believe 8 screens to set up and watch whatever you want. Also worked for reading trouble codes but most will do that.
There are still some tuners available that you can buy with dpf and egr deletes, the egr delete isn't a bad idea, it will save money without having to have the egr valve and body cleaned serviced every 67k miles at the tune of 300 bucks. I do know a friend of my step son who has his 2012 Ram 2500 set up with a Smarty Junior, egr dpf deleted, intake exhaust system installed and says he is getting 22mpg highway miles per gallon, buy my new 2013 got that on the drive home from the dealership acording to the trip computor. Not sure how accurate that is or if it read my drive from a fuel stop to the house on a country backroad at 35mph as i hadn't figured out the electronic stuff before then.
If you want a monitor to watch different parameters, Edge and Bullydog both would work as they have seperate monitors that sit on your dash.
Personaly i have no experience with the Bullydog unit but from talking with people who do, they love them.
I myself will be installing another Edge Juice with color screen, i don't see a need for color touch screen, they have both. Any intake system will be better than the factory and can be found for reasonable prices, S&B seems to be very popular, dpf back exhaust systems are available from several vendors to, prices on them.can vary quite alot so do your homework. Don't believe all of the numbers you will see on how much horsepower you will gain, if it was true, 15hp from an intake 20 from exhause and a hundred from a tuner would make a monster tow rig, my '07 was plenty strong enough in tow mode with the edge, compared to this 2013 stock it feels like a slug and it is supposed to have more power than the '07 did, so i know it made a huge difference, i only used tow and fuel mileage on it for the most part but it had 5 settings and if you are brave enough to try the race mode and pay an extra hundred bucks for a hot unlock code it had a race mode as well that increased power and torque a huge amount. Just never had a need for it.
Hope that didn't confuse you to much, i love my cummins 6.7, my last truck passed more Ford and Chevys puulling any pass we went over!! It would go as fast as i dared go towing and stopped or slowed down just as good with the factory exhaust brake!! Hard to beat for a tow vehicle. Good luck and let us all know what you decide to do, the deletes can get you into trouble, void warrentys as well.
I'll be keeping emissions equipment on the new truck myself, supposedly the DEF helps with less regens anyway, and so far i haven't seen any tuners to skip past that.
Marcus