Well, finished changing my axle yesterday. After an epic entire day long battle with a rusted-in ball-joint, that POS met it's match.
It started while trying to disconnect a sway bar endlink that was too rusted to handle an allen wrench. Once that sucker stripped out, I busted out the angle grinder with a cutting wheel installed (in other words, non-issue). Then I thought I would change out the ball-joint while I swapped out the axle, big mistake. The bolt that pinches the hub around the balljoint snapped like a twig. I fool-heartedly drilled a smaller hole in the middle of this stud that no longer had a head, tapped it, and tried to back it out. It laughed in my face after taking a dump on my dog.
Once I saw the hopelessness of the situation, the knuckle came off the car. A combination of PB-Blaster, 8 drill bits (most were dull to begin with), and a gallon of sweat was used in the literally 100-degree heat of Texas to drill, baby drill that sucker out. The knuckle then was attached back to the car and a pickle-fork + chisel laying on top of each other were driven between the lower control arm and the knuckle pinch point using the biggest BFH I had. The ball-joint submitted, see the aftermath below.
http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t288/sketron13/IMG_20130903_185039_zps4f2c8de6.jpg
http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t288/sketron13/IMG_20130903_185018_zps53f5ea1b.jpg
The axle was a DTA axle off ebay. I was a little nervous being as how these axles were dirt cheap (only $120 for both), but they appear to be quality pieces. Axle installed perfectly, no vibration when driving, no noise, and no grease slinging around anymore. I guess you run the risk of sub-par quality control with these axles, and you can't non-destructively estimate the strength/heat treatment or alloy identification of these suckers unless you happen to have a hardness testing machine and an OES nearby. Still, for the price, not too shabby.