You understand that the AFM transition is not seamless in every truck, right? You may be one of the lucky ones, but others have serious lugging, hesitation, and transmission clunking concerns during AFM operation. I'm a reasonable guy, and if I wasn't able to turn AFM off on my '14, I would have taken a bath and traded it right away. Yes, it was that bad.
I think you'll find that the AFM system doesn't improve mileage much, if any at all. On my '14 I noticed zero difference when deactivating it. Each truck is different, but based on experience from members of this forum, even if it does affect mileage it will be by 1 mpg or less.
For what it's worth, this exact issue has shown up quite a few times on this board on trucks still under warranty. It sounds as if this issue is known by GM. You might politely plead your case to see if they'll cover a portion of the bill.
Right along with the team that programmed the transmission, designed the faulty t-stat / cooling system, the AFM system, the seat heating elements / system, the cup holder that allows fluid to leak into the bottom of the fold down arm rest, the seat bracket that loosens after about 12,000 miles, the sweet FM radio, the squeaky flapper valve, and probably other issues that I'm forgetting.
Some say they notice it, and some say they don't. I believe that some trucks behave differently than others, and I also believe some people are considerably more in tune with their vehicles than others. My '14 was horrible, especially when combined with the clunking, hesitating, flair shifting transmission. It drove me back to a '13 2500HD as soon as it financially made sense. I won't purchase another new truck with any kind of cylinder deactivation.
Edit: By the way, when I shut off AFM both with the Range device my mileage was exactly the same. Ultimately when I shut if off with a tuner, my mileage increased by 1 mpg.
What was the history of the truck? If you haven't done so already, ask the dealer for a warranty history report. I'd bet you'll find a bit of information regarding the previous owner's attempts to fix the problem.
I love it... 600 pages of people trying all kinds of fixes. Some work on some trucks, and some don't. A guy reads 10 pages, tries a driveshaft fix, and holy moly he's got the whole thing figured out! Congratulations on your fix, and on how you've so eloquently communicated it!
There are a lot of pages in this thread. I'm guessing you haven't read all of them. There have been plenty of others that have taken their driveshafts to specialty powertrain shops to have them checked. A very small percentage have had driveshaft issues. Most have mentioned that theirs have checked out ok for both runout and balance. The consensus is that it's not one single issue with these trucks, there are multiple reasons for the vibrations.
It's been a while, but this has been discussed before: http://www.gm-trucks.com/forums/topic/155509-high-frequency-noise-coming-from-dash-when-in-4wd/page-2?hl=high+pitched&do=findComment&comment=1391531. I don't believe GM will fix it, and as others have mentioned, considers it "normal."
Not all trucks vibrate. Be sure you test drive at past 70mph as it seems that the trucks that do vibrate will vibrate at 70+. A thorough test drive in varying conditions is what I'd recommend. I couldn't wait to get rid of my 2014 for a number of reasons. There are a number of systems on these trucks that were poorly designed and not well thought out. I recently traded back to a 2013 2500HD, and it drives so much better it isn't even close. A thorough test drive is your friend!