Sean,
I would recommend you tell us some more about your intended use. Some things here are going in the direction of real racing engines (N2O...) but from your statements I thought you were going more into the street region, where a 3500 stall TC will kill mileage down to 10 or something. Also, in my opinion, forged are only an advantage when it comes to high RPMs, high temperatures and compression very short of detonation. Like in a race engine. The fact that forged have to be run on wider tolerances makes the seal worse if you don't rev the engine very high. And they're much more expensive. But that's only my opinion. And never forget: only tuning at one end doesn't get you anywhere. You have to have a pretty exact concept before you start assembling your motor. Like, if you're planning to go into high RPMs it's not only the pistons you want to think about, RPM also kills bottom ends and valve trains quite successfully
So tell us as exactly as possible what you want to do with that car and we can give you much more precise answers. Very probably you're going to get a load of qualified help on this forum, but you want help in the direction you're heading
Hope I could help a bit,
Max