[Brian86]

No harm will come to the car driving it with the transfer case fuse removed.

It's also perfectly safe to drive the car with the front driveshaft removed, although the computer will periodically figure it out and flash malfunctions at you.

Just shooting from the hip, but having had the transfer cases and transmissions out of these cars:

Towing with the front wheels on the ground is bad, because the front wheels will be turning the transfer case, but the transmission output will remain idle. While the wet clutch is 'disengaged' when the car is off there is still sufficient drag when the speed differential is bonkers high to smoke the wet clutch.

Towing with the rear wheels on the ground is also bad. In addition to the same problem above with the transfer case it will also smoke the transmission just like any car because the output shaft will be spinning, but the transfer shaft is idle so the fluid stays stuck in the bottom.

x cars need to be on a flat bed, 4 wheel dolly, or front wheels on the ground with the front driveshaft removed. Of course this really only applies to road speeds. If you're just moving it around the driveway or something it'll be oK.

A bad tow won't hurt the actuator gears... unless the Xfer case got so hot it actually melted the plastic, but if that happened you should just get 4x4 errors all the time.

My gut says it's in the engine, not the transfer case. Nothing the transfer case does should be able to suck power out of the engine or cause vibrations unless other things in the drivetrain have some pretty profound malfunctions.

I'd assume there aren't any relevant DME malfunction codes?

Recommend reinstalling the actuator fuse, removing the front driveshaft, then clearing the codes. The car doesn't really know the front driveshaft is missing unless you spin the tires so it'll drive without any malfunction conditions. See if the problem persists.