That is indeed a cool bike, congratulations.
If you do a quick-and-dirty chemical strip of the frame and then take it to the blaster for final clean-up you can save a substantial amount of money. Not only does this remove some of the paint, it weakens anything that is left over and reduces blasting time. I worked for a powder coating business for a period of time and quite often we'd hit parts with chemical stripper before blasting.
Since you asked what I think, I vote you keep the bike as original as possible. Based on correspondence gained from VintageLOTUSbicycles.com , the Eclair and Odyssey models with the rack mounts and cantilever brakes are high on the desirability chart, and are also some of the most visited pages on the site. You may be sorry with the resale value later if you customize the bike too much.