a thermostat is a valve in your coolant system, basically, correct me if i'm wrong, it opens and closes at certain predetermed temps, to let the water in the rad cool down, while the water IN your motor gets hot, when "motor water" gets hot enough, the valve opens, and your coolant system circulates till the motor cools down enough for the valve to close, and so on and so forth...
clutch fans are awesome cause they push so much air... YES they create a drag on you motor, and you lose a little bit of HP, about the same you'd lose with the electric fan set up due to the power drain on your electrical system, but the clutch fan flows much more CFM, and is reliable as shit, and is pretty fucking cheap used...
i ran a FAL set up on my last car, for like 5 minutes...
and my current set up... clutch fan, and SR20 shroud (kinda hard to come by, but AWESOME)... mind the random Silvia grille
soon enough, i'll even have the plastic under tray/engine guard! woot! and working on a full size cooling panel to direct air through that, directly through the AC condenser, and finally to be pulled through my the shrouded clutch fan...