I'm with you on the bulky look for most of the bumpers and I like more of smaller designed like Thorparts or what Recon did with his build...
I was actually thinking about building my own front end and as inspiration I was looking on the original concept design of the H3T.
Also, I don't know how far you want to go with changes and cutting, but my idea was to shorten the frame to achieve higher approach angle. Here is the kind of a sketch of what I was thinking.
So, the light blue line is the rough lines of the frame. You will need to cut of where the red dotted line is. The piece that will be cut out will have holes for mounting D-rings. That piece will have to be welded on top of the frame on the place of the dark blue line. Everything will have to be reinforced allot to be able to hold the weight of the pressure that can be put on the D-Rings. From what I see there should be enought room for reinforcement to clear the body and AC lines... Then you will have to design the bumper based on the new location of the mounts... Also (the main idea of it all) design new front bumper skid plate along the red line. Since the D-ring mounting position is higher, it should give you few extra degrease to your approach angle and it will give you that aggressive look of the H3T concept's skid plate.
