If you don't have a ton of money tied up in CD's, Satellite is a great deal. I like the Kenwood dual shaft CD changer deck better than the custom autosound units. If the face is too small, you can make a larger sheetmetal face and paint it either black or the color of your dash and put it behind the Kenwood face.
As far as kick panel speakers or cutting the bottoms of the doors, IMO, the imaging is terrible because of the extra low placement. I mounted 4" separtes with 1" tweeters in my doors. The rest of the system is a 10" free air sub mounted in a "box" underneath passenger side of seat. The sub box has no back and just sits on the carpet. I have a 4x100 crossfire amp powering the separates, and bridged 200x1 into the sub.
I also have pullout stereo, but I like it a lot. It is an Alpine unit that was about $500 new. It controls an Alpine 6 disc changer as well.