Well, I gave truing my wheels a go, and to my surprise, I can actually do it now. Not claiming to be a pro at it or anything, but I can get lateral true reasonably decent on rims now. It wasn't nearly as hard as I was worried about.

IthaDan's post was really the one that gave me the confidence to give it a shot. I found all his advice to be excellent. I've used the Park Tools 3-sided wrench and Park Tools 4-sided wrench and they are a joy to use.

If there are any other newbies out there, I encourage you to give it a shot after doing some study. I'm a homework junkie, and I really found the Park Tools description helpful, as well as watching various YouTube videos. (Most I found useless for me, but YMMV.) One thing I didn't realize at first is that it's possible to work larger areas of the rim at a time when doing gross adjustment, and pull 3-8 spokes all towards one side, rather than just fixating on individual spokes right away.

Now I'm truing wheels on all the beaters I work on just because it's fun. And important, because most of these crap bikes REALLY need truing - wobbly rims and brake pad rubbing galore. So satisfying to be able to make them work decently.