Ive got a little experience with these and a lot depends on what you want to use the car for et and rules wise. For the super classes a chassis kit is the way to go. I use chassisworks stuff but they are the highest priced and what I feel is the best, most user freindly build for the do it yourselfer. If your looking to build a 9.90 car and doing it yourself get a mild steel kit that you can mig weld. Not knowing your skill level its hard to say but generally a first time/from scratch build will be much easier/forgiving with a steel kit versus a chrome moly. On the strut thing I thing they are somewhat overrated for that speed but the header clearance alone makes them worth getting if you can find some used ones on the cheap.
As for the back half approach it can be done but take it from me, again for ME it sucks!!!! Im doing it on my 67 nova street strip and almost hate it. Ive been a fabricator for thirty years tinkering with stock car and drag chassis along the way and love that clean, new tubing kind of work but this is the farthest ive gone having to integrate stock sheet metal into fabricated tubing.sheet and it sucks. Cars are so friggin out of square from the factory that most wouldnt believe it and then take into account that midevil process of trying to remove undercoating!!!!!!!!!!! This will be my last chop job, next project will be a FED nostalgia dragster that I will build from scratch.

Cut the skin off the vega and throw the rest away.