Started to tear into replacing the wheel studs on the passenger side. Noticed that the ABS plate is in the way when the hub assembly is still on. Is there an easy way to replace the wheel studs without pulling the hub assembly or does it need to be pulled? And does the ABS plate detach from the hub assembly and how?

Virtually all the newer hub assemblies come with the ABS tone ring.  It's kinda like the radiators.  They only manufacture the radiator for the automatic transmission equipped trucks because the same radiator works on the manual transmission equipped trucks.  It's just cheaper for them to make and we eat the slight price point difference when we buy one for a manual equipped truck. Hubs with tone rings work on non-ABS equipped trucks too. The one I just installed has the tone ring although my truck isn't equipped with ABS (thank goodness!).

The ABS tone rings are not removable, but I'm thinking I could have pressed a stud out of the one I just installed a couple of days ago if I needed to.  If you had a stud remover I think they would press out.  You may just have to run a sacrificial nut down on the stud and rap it with a hammer a couple of times until it releases, then insert a new stud and run a good open ended nut on to it to set it (pull it) into the hub securely.