UPDATE 02/04/2009:

Have put 1500 miles on the engine with the new head gaskets now.
Cooling system still has pressure in it in the morning after sitting all night.
Everything seems to have sealed tightly.
If you have a head gasket problem, the proceedures I used here have worked.
Check your surfaces for flatness and smoothness. Make sure everything is tight and smooth.

 

It's been about 9 months now with about 10K miles added to the truck. Have taken several trips with the truck camper on. A total load of about 4000 pounds. The water level has not changed a bit and everything is still working fine. This engine has had a lot of hard use since the last head gasket replacement and all is fine.

J

 

It's been 2 years and over 20,000 miles since the fix.
The engine is working great. The head gaskets are still holding their seal. Nothing leaks.
So far, the fix as described is a good fix.
This whole problem would have never happened if Ford factory machining on the block was done properly.
The current problem I'm dealing with is the instrument cluster.
The back of the instrument cluster is one big plastic or mylar printed circuit board. The wires connecting to the instrument / gauge cluster connect by 3 rectangular plugs that are expected to make contact with the flexible plastic circuit board seem to lose contact and cause all sorts of nonsense with the instrument cluster. I have had to remove the cluster and bend the plastic to flatten it and reinsert it into the plug holes 3 times now over the last year. I think the next time this happens, I will try to fit a thin dense foam weather type strip into the plug holes to provide some pressure against the multi pin plug contacts.

You just shouldn't have to fix stupid things like this on a vehicle. Stuff like this and the heads should always work.