Cool! Thanks everyone for the good advice. I took the air filter off in order to get home. The filter was wet and I didn't want to suck any water/mud into the engine. I hate riding without a filter, but there's still no dust here, just mud. So I figured it can't be any worse than gets done to a snowmobile. The carb was dry and so was everything on the clean side of the air filter. Looks like the oil on the filter was doing it's job. I did take the carb apart anyway...which was fine because I was just going to change the stock jets. Found lots of great jetting advice in previous posts here too. As a matter of fact, I chosen chain/sprockets, tires, tall seat foam, moved my handlebars forward and knew to pay special attention to the swingarm bearings all as a reult of this site.
The only burning question I still have is: Can the KIPS really rattle that loudly and not be a problem? I've never heard another KDX, so I have nothing to compare it to, but MAN! that thing is noisy. It's hard to believe it's normal.
Joe