Great topic, like the hidden idea, want to do something , and retain factory look , I'll be following this, oh , I too have a 2.5 RC lift that gets beat on , and has served me well! As for AlpineAzzWipe, I have learned to ignore his useless posts !
I'm not a fan of blacking things out , but you may want to think about photoshopping black rims and mirror caps , to match the running boards ,or go for chrome boards to match your rims and mirror caps with photoshop?kind of one theme or the other.