A904 high performance rebuild--advice wanted

That's encouraging... thanks! I'll verify which shift kit they used...
Absolutely going to run an external cooler.

What benefit would the high performance clutches, etc. provide?

They are tougher, as in 5-600 HP.
One of the main upgrades for HP is the direct clutchpack, as it takes all the input torque in the forward gears.
A 5 clutch drum would be nice, but at 300 hp it not too big an issue and could be swaped in down the road as HP increases.

What would be really nice would be to pick up a spare along the way, and start collecting HP parts for it a little at a time.
Then you could swap it out when the engine gets bigger.