Originally posted by clickwir
I like the look of the exposed shaft. 
h: that sounded bad.
How can I see the look of the shaft but not have the bottom area all open and stuff?
There's usually a clip at the inside of the hole in the shift boot that holds the boot to the shifter. You could try and take that clip out so the boot just chills down at the bottom of the shifter instead of covering the whole thing.
The stock shifter's painted black though, it's not nice CNC-machined aluminum like the skunk2 bits.