Worth modding for imports?

If it isn't obvious yet, I'm still new to the modding scene. Recently though I've been putting it under serious consideration, since I've wanted to have a PS2 capable of playing Japanese games. Since I have a pretty nice return policy on my box, I don't want to needlessly start tooling around in there just to find out I'd get limited returns, and *poof*, no one will replace my box anymore.

I don't really intend on using this for US backups (no, really!) but I would like to use backup Japanese games, due to how hard they are to get once, let alone replace. From my initial amount of research, I've also read about the necessity of PAL -> NTSC patching, and I'm not sure if import patches are all that available.


So, to get to the point, I leave this questions to you technical geniuses out there: Is it worth spending the time and cash to mod (or have someone else mod) a PS2 for other region game backups?


To the best of my knowledge it looks like the box I bought Sept of 2003 is a v7.