We (brother & I) took the middle road and prepared the car for professional painter to apply the final coat.
After reading the many posts on this forun it became clear that getting it right for 'glass cars was a dark art - so we took no chances, disposed of a couple of chickens and applied the undercoat under a full moon
To get to this point took a full weekend and a couple of hours each night after work.
After the undercoat the rubbing back took another week of after hours activity and some weekend time.
The painter did the main body without doors/bonnet etc and shot those seperately. (1 day)
This is a photo during re-assembly... (taken with mobile phone so not great quality)
The total cash outlay was $500
(the panel shop operator did receive a number of referals from my brother so they had a good relationship)
It is not the best paint job but it is better than I need/wanted/expected, I am very pleased with it and think that was good value for money.
It is a LOT of rubbing and you'll get tired and sore and will wish you hadn't - but eventually you forget that bit. Personally if I were faced with a 3 month wait and 10K I'd be stocking up on filler and paper again. Its a price/pain trade off.
There is a big version of this photo in the gallery - it might be worth examining other home jobs to see if it suits you.
good luck
LoBelly