Its pretty hard to tell if the beam bushes are fckd by looking at them.
Get a big tire lever in there and see if you can move it both sides, its meant to have some play but not loads if they are falling to bits and they move quite a lot then that's a good clue
Take care while its on the stands though
Don't worry to much, just don't chuck it around until its fixed as it can give you a snap over-steer if you load it up in a fast corner.
Its not that hard to do just take a bit of elbow grease, forget the extra axle sounds like a lot of work unless you want it to be shiny
Have you checked the rear top mounts/spring plates?
These can work through and eventually pop into the cabin and fire the parcel shelf up
