I would vote for just pulling the tranny, but there is some sense in what your buddy is saying. To drop the tranny you have to first pull the shift tower out, Loosen all those bolts,pull the boots and get the cover off then you can pull the tower out, it just lifts out.
Go underneath and drop the skid plate, remove speedo cable and e-brake cable. Drop out the drive shafts. now put your 2 ton floor jack under the cross member to hold up the tranny and remove the bolts that hold the x member to the frame. the tranny should drop a bit then you have to slide it back about 2 inches to drop it out. Oops, you have to remove the clutch pedal linkage as well and worry about the spring for the throw out bearing and the fork that engages the bearing.
If you do it 46cjs way you end up doing all this stuff anyway. I just did it to rebuild the motor, so I seperated the motor from the bell housing in the frame, took off both fenders and grill to do it. Pulled the motor, then dropped the tranny, this way the clutch fork and spring don't get roughed up. For me it was easier to work with the two smaller pieces of iron, my crane wasn't big enough to do both at the same time. Big project either way, get a friend to help.