Shedman, if I may? Could I suggest you do a "how to", explaining how to do this "surgery" - swapping out the insides of the light with the LED strip?

It sounds like this 3rd. brake light assembly is prone to failure on these cars, and is not only expensive to replace, but often out of stock across the country at any given time. Mine is working ok so far, but I'm worried it'll fail and I'd rather do an inexpensive, but effective repair like you described than buy another whole assembly.