Hmmm, it's freezing here in Dallas, so I grabbed a coffee and thought about your predicament. Does this make sense, or did I have too much caffeine?

As Doc said, it's always recommended to keep a cam lobe and the part that rubs on it together, because they set up a particular wear pattern with each other. In this case that would be the rocker arm. So, taking off the rocker arms and putting them back in different locations could induce wear on the new rocker-arm/cam-lobe mating surfaces. The preferred used-cam swap would include the rocker arms, labeled and sorted to match the lobe that they had been riding on previously. You probably won't find that scenario unless you take the donor cam/rockers off yourself and keep them sorted.

Along the same line,, that would say that if you bought a new $400 cam, you should also buy a $600 set of rockers, so they could wear-in together. Otherwise you face the same scenario as above.

Based on that, if it were me, I would inspect the rocker arms carefully for wear on the lobe contact surface and shaft bore. If they were okay, I'd buy the used cam and slap it in. Probably the worst that would happen would be it would wear and start to tick after awhile. But the other scenario would be it's just fine; for $65 instead of $1000.

Does that sound logical?

Oh, when he said bad lifter, did he mean the hydraulic thrust element that slips in the other end of the rocker arm, or did he mean the rocker arm itself?

DG