you can see some white plastic in the back, this is the AC pipe that feeds the center consol vents
Mine also has a white plastic structure directly behind the sled. Which gave me an idea... I drilled two holes - one where the red RCA connector is, and one where the AC connector is. Then screwed the cut off threaded section of a plastic pen body into each hole. Add a short length of plastic tubing over those to reach the MKII. Presto, Air Conditioning for the player, that only blows when the floor vents are selected. I thought it might be needed here in the Arizona desert. (and man, is it ever hot here.) It actually seems to work pretty well. I have not done any actual tests, but when I pull the unit out, the top is noticeably cool.

current plans call for the radio to return to it origanl place
On mine, I can easily reconnect the ribbon connector and snap the front back onto the unit. No harm done. Of course, the dash fascia is another matter altogether.

the shine from the sled
I hated that. I tried spraying some tool handle grip spray stuff on the front. It works for a while, but is not durable enough. I was thinking of trying the plasti-dip stuff, or perhaps a variation on Tony's idea of a cut out binder cover. I really wish they had not made the sled shiny. Or at least they should have manufactured the fascia so that it covers the exposed areas of the sled. Having the fascia slightly wrap around the lip of the sled would seem to have been a trivial feature when designing it.

Your install looks good in the dash. I envy everyone who has such a clean way to place the unit. I really need to figure out some way to clean mine up. The way Toyota built the trucks, the radio didn't sit in a nice clear expanse of dash, but in a this stupid enclosed thingy. It supposedly is a DIN slot, but only if you trim the hole. And trimming it meant the the holes edges are now in a beveled lip area (the lip used to fit over the face of the radio). On top of that, the section actually had the radio on top, and a pocket underneath. But the top area only had about 5 inches of depth (that tubing crossmember is right there). So I had to put the sled in the bottom, and move the pocket to the top - inverting it in the process. Argh!

Next time I buy a vehicle, some consideration is going to be paid to potential audio upgrades.

Being so observant, I just noticed your screen name. Are you in Phoenix, or is that a mythological reference of some kind?