Thank you Floyd for your thoughtful and thorough reply!

For the foreseeable future, the 70-200 is my upper limit. I'm disabled and
the monster 500mm and 600mm lenses, while seductive, just aren't practical
for me. Besides even if I did get one of those, it would probably be for
shooting birds at a local wildlife sanctuary or on the sidelines of my
nephew's football game, and for those settings, I already have a nice
monopod.

So I think my D3 and 70-200 is about my upper end weight limit. They come to
just under 6 lbs, so my weight demands aren't that great.  What I do want is
quality and sturdiness.  Backpacking is not really an option for me, so I
don't need super-light weight nor extremely small size when collapsed. I'm a
car camera kind of guy. <s>

I'm 6'3" so sufficient height of the tripod and head setup is important - so
that I don't have to crane my neck down to see the viewfinder. And ease of
switching from horizontal to vertical perspectives is important (I don't
know how that works in ball heads because I've always used the 3039
3-handle, 3-way system).  I've heard that ball heads can be sloppy, and move
all over the place when you want to make minor adjustments, so the ball head
must be solid, smooth, and capable of making fine adjustments in any of the
three directions.

Thanks again Floyd for your kind reply.
John