Well, from an engineering standpoint, what you are saying about "heat soak" is pretty wrong. Heat transfers MUCH MUCH faster when there is flow. If you are thinking that this is going to heat up too much, then why wouldn't the Y-pipe break? The scoop? Surely all these parts will be "heat soaked" as well.
The thing you are forgetting is that convection (transfer of heat through movement of fluid--in this case exhaust gas--over a surface) is the fastest way to heat something up. So stagnant air against a plate is not going to do much compared to an operating system with plenty of flow.
Conduction (transfer of heat through a material) is another very effective means of heat transfer, especially in metal. So I would have to say that your up pipe is probably cooler than deleting the whole system because, with a system like this, there is coolant going through the EGR cooler, which is still firmly attached to this block off plate, and that heat will transfer from the block off plate, to the cooler, where the heat is transferred to the coolant.
The EGR cooler is MADE to cool exhaust gases. Unfortunately it doesn't have the longevity we all desire, or we wouldn't be talking about it in the first place, but it does cool, and it will surely cool the block-off-plate plate at the end of the cooler enough to bring that area to a temperature below that experienced by the rest of the Y-pipe.
Now, as to the scoop inside the Y-Pipe, I would get rid of this, and the only reason is because you are interrupting air flow through the pipe itself, which will in turn hurt your turbo spooling capability. That is similar to having 3" exhaust instead of 4", it simply constricts airflow.
I hope this helps someone make an informed decision.