Well drop a line if you do head this way. Pnwx covers Oregon, Washington and BC Canada (eh). We go out between march and october for the most part (as do most wheeler's in this area) but we do run in the winter (see superjens.com).
There are some seriously hardcore Xterra owners in the club and they are handy for help and advice. You'll run into them on this board. I'd take advice seriously as most of us share advice only when we know what we're talking about (we usually learned the hard way
).
Check out the plates at skidrow.com - they are nice. I'd recommend the Transfer case one as the T-case on the X hangs down. You rip that off and its going to take more than a welder to repair.
Manufacturers such as EOE and Calmini make nice sliders too.
I run my rig all over downtown all week and I havent noticed any real impact on mileage.
Bilstein shocks are also a very nice upgrade after tires.
Cheers