Windstar,
Good news. I changed the tranny fluid today in a 2004 Ford Taurus with the same tranny as yours. I took your lead and took pictures of the process. I'm beat down right now so I'm going to post the pics tomorrow, but I've included pics of several key steps and some of the stuff that I mentioned in my earlier posts.
Mark
P.S. It was just as messy as I remembered it.