Yes custom plates are nice to have! Just removed the step bars from the H3 and the roof bars yesterday.
Not sure what you mean by useless off-road. The HUMMER is the ultimate stock civillian off-roader. The H1 logo didn't start until GM bought the use of the name from AM Gereral. Check out
http://www.humvee.net and you will see how off-road worthy they are.
As far as the H3, you can still do a lot of off-roading with it. Show me another OEM manual that has water fording and log crossing in there.
Bottom line buy what you can afford and like. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/cool.gif.3bcaf8f141236c00f8044d07150e34f7.gif