I can't touch a crankbait to the deck of my '08 Ranger TR177 without snagging the carpet. Do the newer boats still have this problem? Thanks

I do not have your boat, but on my G3 Pro 175 I went to Lowes and pulled off a piece of 48" wide hard foam pad from the roller, trimmed it to fit the front deck and the reels and baits sit on that instead of carpet.  Good on my feet to stand on also.  It is about 1" thick and does not blow up under way.  It also keeps the gunk from scented worms off the carpet and no rug rash on the reels. The 48" takes it about 6" back from the butt seat deck mount so I just cut a hole in it to fit.

Ranger uses syntec 24oz carpet, as does bass cat and I’m sure others. I just replaced 20yr old carpet in my ranger with syntec and yes, trebles will snag. Sharp trebles go into anything. I use a lure wrap on my treble baits for this reason.

I'm going to put EVA faux foam in mine. Some of the cheaper stuff, from Amazon or eBay. 

I'm wondering how it will do with hooks. It's not supposed to hold dirt or water like carpet.

Use cut pile and not loop pile.  My last two Stratos and my Javelin all had cut pile carpet.  These were all used boats when I got them so don't know if that was OEM or not.  I know the Javelin had just had the carpet replaced when I got it, but I've never had a boat with loop pile carpet.