[Eh_nigma]

Ironically, I just finished this last night. The replacement of JUST the lever portion takes less than an hour. That's removing the floor console, removing the lever, replacing and remounting the lever along with the floor console.

All you need is:
10mm socket
13mm long socket
flat-head screwdriver
needle nose pliars.

This can also be done without removing the seats.

DO release the e-brake from the rear as Cliff posted.

Removing the floor console is a bit of a pain in the ass if you're doing it the first time. The dealership though, well, I can get off in at most 10 minutes.

Once it's off, the e-brake sensor (at the rear of the e-brake) needs to be disconnected. The 13mm long neck socket needs to unbolt the 5 13mm nuts. The shifter will obviously need to come up enough to lift off the e-brake.

Using the slack from disconnecting the equilizer, you have enough play to disconnect the cable. When it's disconnected, then with the needlenose pliars you need to press in the 3 teeth on the collar of the cable, at the rear of the e-brake lever assembly.

Toss out the old one or whatever you'd like to do. Feed and lock in the cable to the new e-brake lever, and bolt it in connecting it all as it was before. Remember to reconnect the equilizer.

Putting it all back together (the floor console included) should be less than 20 minutes. So yeah, replacing it start to finish, I can't see being more than an hour.

...and I just got off the phone with a buddy at GM, 1.5hrs @ $72.00 hr for the lever replacement.