So here's the plan. My current exhaust is old and rusty and it's some useless homemade crap the prior owner made himself, I have no idea what he was thinking.

I got brand new cats as well so I intend to do keep them(my ideal solution would be to make them removable but that'd require too much work since they are welded on the other side and it's apparently a bitch to work there). The general idea is to cut of the old exhaust before the Y-pipe that merges the exhaust pipes into one, homemade, 3" pipe and replace them with two separate 2½" stainless pipes that travel the same path as the stock pipe next to each other. After the axle one pipe will diverge off to the drivers side and the other straight forward.

Then I'll also add a dynomax bullet muffler on each pipe.

How does this idea sound? There's no real need to connect the two pipes is there? I see some exhaust designs do that via an h-pipe. Why?

 

I think the corssover pipe, no matter the design is supposed to even out the pressure between the banks. What you are saying is pretty much how I plan on doing my exhaust but I hear there isnt a lot of space for 2 pipes to go over the upper panhard bar brace for 2 pipes. I have the BMR upper brace which gives you more room It is about 3/4 of the way down the page

 

Don't worry about the crossover pipe, instead save and put that money towards a pair of exhaust cutouts before the cats and mandrel bends on the exhaust. You may also want to check into some classic chambered mufflers, they will flow a little less than the Bullets but will sound better.