I surely never said you had to remove and replace the lifters. The only reason to is if there is a failure or you want to remove the AFM/DoD system entirely.
Your neighbor got ****ing raped on price. Not even a dealership would charge $5,000 for new lifters with all the labor. You can buy a brand new engine from GM for less than that. It's barely 10-12 hours of labor to remove and replace all lifters and even at $100 an hour that no where close. People be getting scammed out there.