'Cropping' complex imported PDF's

Greetigns,
We use Illustrator 10 to import and manipulate complex PDF drawings. I find that I sometimes need to have just a small part of a drawing. Unfortunately, there are enough lines that adding anchor points and deleting lines and the like is a tedious, time-consuming task.
I usually endup using the Direct Select tool to draw a box around the area of interest, then Select > Inverse and delete everything not highlighted. Then I begin the process of shortening all lines that extended from within the selected area. It's a good, effective work-around, but I still have to make a lot of individual changes.
I can use the Add Anchor tool to highlight and delete the portions I don't want, but that's still a tedious process.
Is there a way to carve out a square, like I do with the Direct Select tool, but have the items that cross the line be cut there?
I tried using a cropping method I found online, but it turns out that cropping a huge bunch of disconnected, not filled, not overlapped, paths just deletes everything.
Soooo... if I'm importing line drawing pdfs and need to crop out portions, is there a way that doesn't require me to either shorten or anchor/delete portions of lines that extend outside my area of interest?
thanks,
Solon

Jacob,
I understand fully about the late night, I've done much worse.
Speaking of much worse...
It works on all the old files that I inherited as .ai or .eps, but no matter what I do, if I open a PDF file in Illustrator, I still get those overhanging lines when I try what you suggested.
I tried doing it with the items in PDF format, then in AI, then in EPS (Which made them HUGE files.. and had a clipping mask on EVERY SINGLE path).
I've scoured the settings of the old files (saved as .ai and .eps) and don't have a way of contacting the person who made them.
Since I was having success with one type of file and not with the other, I tried:
1. Copy/pasting the successful drawing into the unsuccessful file: it worked.
2. Copy/pasting the unsuccessful drawing into the successful file: it failed.
I've tried opening the PDFs in Illustrator, then saving them as .ai or .eps. I've tried opening them in Acrobat and using File > Save As... and choosing .ai or .eps.
The fact that I can make an older drawing work in the new file and a new drawing fail in an old file tells me that there's got to be something about the line drawing itself, the individual paths, that makes this work for the old information, but not the new.
Unfortunately, beyond stroke and color, i don't see anything for determining 'path properties' that might account for this.
If you have any ideas for 'path troubleshooting', I'd love to hear them. As it sits now, I'm back to doing what I was before: Highlight, Select > Inverse, Delete, Clean Up.
:: sigh ::
Solon

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