Leon R, I suspect cutting down the crank caused the failure also. I had it happen when my brother-in-law ran his 3.0L Ford Ranger out of oil and seized the crank (only had 29k on the truck!). We rebuilt it and 200 miles later the crank broke in half. Never made that mistake again. Time will tell, but to me the late '02-'03 Axiom motor seems to be the ticket. Now If you tear down an early motor and change the pistons (more drain back holes as documented in a few posts here), that too could solve the problem but I'm not sure how much the PCV system makes a difference.
Here is the thing, I could have installed a reman motor, probably done right, but, it would have been probably $3200 just for the longblock. As it is I got lucky and got this motor for $1200 plus shipping ($165). Most of the ones I see are $1700-$2100 used. On top of that I put another $900 or so in misc. parts (gaskets, starter, alternator, torque converter etc.) PLUS about $600 which is what I paid my tech to install it (we were slow the last few weeks so I could justify it). That is $2900. I paid $9300 for the VX in June and didn't really want to drop another $4900 into it, BUT I do still have my standards and wanted it done right. If someone just walked throught my door and I did the exact job, it would have left at over $5000! Of course I toyed with putting the 5.3 E-rod or equivalent into it but that would be about $15-20K and I have waaaay to many things going on in my live to justify that kind of project.