If you've looked at the front bumper then you know that it
doesn't really do much of anything. It's mostly plastic with
a few square feet of sheet metal that are no thicker than
the body panels on our trucks.
If you want real protection from your bumpers you'll have
to go aftermarket anyway. These bumpers are designed
to meet EPA mileage standards, not occupant safety rules.
If you're looking for a "real" bumper, look here...
http://www.biofuelman.com/
if you want to know if it's safe to cut up the stock bumper...
go for it, it does nothing in a real crash situation.
As far as a place designed for it, sometimes there just isn't
one, but if you need one you still have to install it.
I spent weeks trying to decide where the "best" place for
my auxilliary battery for my inverter should be, in the end
I wound up mounting it under the truck on the transmission
cross member because it just worked for me. I had great
ideas from lots of people, but in the end I needed it to be
as close (for voltage drop reasons) as I could get it to the
drivers side seat (that's where the inverter was mounted),
so the transmission mount was the best place for me, even
though it had never been suggested
