Nice what plate did you end up getting?Last week I finally picked up a couple of rhino ramps, and got around to putting on my aluminum skid plate. I knew the one that comes built-in on the car wasn't much—but damn! It's like the top on a plastic storage tub! No fkn way it would protect anything under there. It's purely for airflow.
I put sound deadening materials (one layer of butyl and one layer of closed cell foam) on the new aluminum plate, and mounted in with some fresh loc-tite on the hardware. It's much heavier but it's worth every ounce.
I definitely feel like there's less noise coming from the forward floor, but I never measured or anything. The additional protection isn't even in question.