I find it very amusing that your Excursion has 1.5 DINs and my Mustang has 2. My vehicle could probably fit inside yours, yet they couldn't find room for an extra half of a freakin' DIN slot somewhere in that massive dash?

Seriously though, you'll hear various opinions on this. I actually went the 2 DIN route since I didn't want to mess with an external amplifier, running wires all over the place, etc. I took as much advantage of the existing wiring as possible by using a separate head unit. My Kenwood head unit has a CD player, but I think I've used it a total of maybe 20 times since I installed my empeg 3+ years ago. Satellite radio doesn't do much for me, since the only radio I really listen to is local sports talk. For the CD thing, you could always hook a portable CD player up to your empeg's AUX connection in the back, couldn't you? Not very elegant, but maybe a portable CD player would fit in that extra half DIN?

Or, better yet, just sacrifice one of your 12 seats and put a rack-mount stereo system in it.