I managed to make the change on my 300 Tdi last weekend and I'm not convinced that it's made any improvement at all. In fact, it may actually be slightly worse :-(
As far as I could see the EGR valve was closed when I took it off and while the intercooler hose did have some muck in it, it didn't look too bad.
Is there anything I could have done wrong? The blanking plate seems fine and there's no blowing of the exhaust. The intercooler hose looks fine, the original hose was partly metal so would have retained it's shape, is there anyway it could be partially closing? It looks a fairly substantial hose to me.
What do people do with the EGR ECU? I just left it alone and disconnected the plug from the EGR and covered the connector with a small plastic bag to keep it dry.