i think about this same stuff, jason.
So i think it will depend on where you are in life. are you getting ready to retire? still many more years of work ahead? is you mortgage payment low for the area, county, state? is your interest rate low?
if you still have lots of work left before retirement, id keep sacking away your money for retirement and NOT put it into the mortgage. let the stock market build it (yes i know its in the tanks which is the perfect reason to buy right now. it WILL come back, just takes time and i assume you have that time). if you pay teh house off and it takes you 6-7 years to recoupe savings, what did you gain from that? just pack of interest paid in? im gunna sounds like a fucking broker BUT if you invest that money, you would actually more over that 6-7 years than the interest you would be saving. This even goes for just making out an IRA. if you have the time, there is no sense rushing to pay it off. the savings is also a good backup plan incase econ does go south and your out of a job. now you just use the savings as a monthly payment untill you get a job that can start taking that over and you still have a good chunk of savings left.
So if you have time before you go on a fixed income, let the house ride on that mortgage and put the savings or exrta money where you can make more from it down the road. if you dont have a retirement or play in stocks, well that changes things a bit. i would probably look at a way that i can still tuck money away but also shorten my mortgage life. this way you are not shrinking a nest egg but yet still saving interest AND you keep yourself safe should the worse case scenario happens.
if you missed the low interest rate boat, monthly mortgage cost is high for the area, and you still have time before retirement, id have to weigh out if investing in stocks would net me back more than the house interest paid in. otherwise id probably looking at your first option since house refi aint going to help. thats the other thing, if interest rates drop again, you can always refi but its gotta be worth while and certainly dont take the additional 30 years or equity out of the house, just do it for the lower interest rate. i did this on our old house and switched from a 30 to a 15 year, dropped 10 years off my payments, and dropped 100 bucks a month (lost PMI and interest rate was almost 2% lower).
if you are close to retirement, thats a whole nother ball game.