Instead of a Y-pipe...
 

Has anyone here just taken their car to a local shop and had them make a true dual by removing the y-pipe and running two pipes to the resonators with either an X intersection or a crossover pipe in between?

Would think this would be fairly cheap, not much louder, and produce better too. Later you could swap out the mufflers for something more free flowing if you wished.

more flowering?

something like this?

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2538/...974216f27d.jpg

I havent seen anyone do this but I imagine it would flow better and probably sound better too. The stock Y pipe is really restrictive.

You could definitely have something like that done, probably pretty inexpensively as well. If I was going through the hassle, I would probably replace the whole exhaust though.