He can do that without gettin permission first.

tru dat.

The 5.5sl could be acquired cheap. Wouldn't have been my first choice, but certainly much closer to the desired price range.

Still worry it won't fit in the garage, however, which would tack on close to $2400 per year to store.

The thinking in the 60's, 70's and 80's about spreaders was that with a little aft rake the mast was pushed out of the slot once the mast was set to a good amount of rotation.
i always thought that the hole tru the mast was a cheesy engineering solution, and never saw it on done any boats except for early nacras. if you go by number of beach cats on the water, no spreaders was the most common set up in those days.