+1 to corey's post about S*R rearsets not working, and I seem to recall reading that ST rearsets won't be a good fit either... dunno, maybe I'm nuts, but I coulda sworn it was on here somewhere.
My fav cheapo mod from this site is the guy that Dremmel'd his beltcovers and glued in a couple pieces of left-over Gutter Guard, then rattle-canned the whole works black. It worked out to be like a $10 mod, and in the pics he posted it looked like a million bucks.
There's another post floating around where another guy hacked his stock footpegs/hangers to lose a bunch of the extra stuff up top where the exhaust brackets bolt up... it really cleaned up the stock pegs. Perfect solution if you're as cheap as you say (which is about as cheap as me, so it's all love over here).
Run a couple searches, maybe those mods will pop up. They may not be exactly what you do, but they may get the thought process going.
bummer on the s*r rearsets
I have seen some chopped stock rearsets that were sanded and powdercoated, which I though looked pretty good. That may be cheap enough for me. I have to figure a way, however, to keep some rear footpegs so my girl can ride with me on occasion.
I've also seent he belt cover mod you describe, which I also like. As it is now, I have my belt covers chopped to next to nothing, although not in the pic as I had them off then.