A quick update.
Although I bought the VB kit a while back, I didn't have the time to do it yet. But, I also bought a tranny that has a delay to engage in D (I drove it before) for a few hundreds with 125k km. I swapped only the VB last night and the gears shift so smooth but I still have the lurch from 2-1st unfortunately. I also get the shudder once in a while. The lurch was reduced a lot after a firmware update and I thought swapping VB will get rid of it completely. I used ZF lifeguard.
The plan is to rebuild the spare tranny and do the VB soon now that the weather is better.
BTW... problems never end. I also need to replace the front axels and all wheel bearings.