For durability you can't beat powder coating. I had my beater powder coated and it's very tough indeed. The downside of that though is, removing powder coat is damn hard going. Even shot blasting struggles to remove it and if you've got a frame with nice thin-gauge tubing you wouldn't want to expose it to the aggression required to take it off again.
Mind you, $200? In the UK I can get a frame blasted and powder coated for £30. If it wasn't so cheap I'd probably have them done by another method. Powder coating can sometimes be a little thick for leaving the details of nice lug work, for instance.