[Baz]

FWIW, I verified 120v on each leg of the breaker and the same thing on the wires going to the thermostat and the element so there's 240v total, so that part should be OK.

The water heater has been working just fine - but a few weeks ago it wasn't heating the water that good so I pressed the trip button on the top thermostat and it was back to normal. That was probably 3 weeks ago. That's why I went ahead with the element swap tonight - thinking one of them may have been shorting. But like I said, both didn't look too bad when I removed them.

At this point getting a new WH seems to be the way to go, considering how old this one is. My water closet sits in the middle of my home so don't like the idea of any leak issues trying to eek a few more months/years out of it.