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(I think especially of Luther inserting the word "alone" in Romans 3:28, in order to prop up his new fiction about being "saved by faith alone"... but I digress),

New fiction???

Eph 2:7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
Eph 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Eph 2:9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.

Looks pretty ancient to me...

Eph 2:5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)
Eph 2:6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:

It ought to be readily apparent just by believing God that He didn't wait around to see when we did enough good works to make it into heaven spiritually...

New fiction???

"New" for Luther's time, at least, yes. I'll admit, it's at least 400 years old, by this point...

That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. (Ephesians 2:7-9, KJV)

I really do wonder what happens to logic, when some people try to proof-text the Scriptures...

Let's take your quote in the light most favorable to your view, and assume that faith WITHOUT ANY WORKS AT ALL saves us (though "works" refers to "works of the Law"--i.e. works of the old Mosaic covenants, the 613 Mitzvot--as St. Paul himself makes abundantly clear in numerous places; and St. James flatly condemns this silly "faith without works saves us" idea in James 2:24). Logically, you'd have proven (given those generous imaginary assumptions, above) that works do not save. You'd not have come CLOSE to proving that faith ALONE saves. There are loads of things in life that are in addition to "works", if you want to use the artificially narrow Protestant view (otherwise, faith itself IS a "work"--you have to *believe*... which is a verb, last time I checked).

What about LOVE, for example? Doesn't 1 Corinthians 13 say that faith without love leaves a man useless, "nothing"? That doesn't sound good.

What about PERSEVERANCE? Jesus says (twice, in the same Gospel!) that "he who endures to the end will be saved" (Matthew 10:22 and 24:13); so will faith without "enduring to the end" save anyone? Jesus doesn't seem to think so.

But beyond that: you'd still have the weighty burden of proving that faith *ALONE* (did you catch the word "alone"?) saves. You haven't even started trying to do that.