I did this paintjob thing with my Ron Cooper about 6 years ago, instead of buying a Surly for touring. It worked well, and the value of my Ron Cooper is definitely higher than the $400 I spent to get the thing powder coated and the $25 I spent on decals. In the meantime I rode an old Trek 400, which was really just fine. As a bonus, I feel like I crossed some sort of Rubicon by diving into that paintjob. It was my first tubular steel racks instead of Blackburn aluminum rod, first metal fenders instead of plastic, my first time filing custom attachments out of aluminum, and my first wheelbuilding. Since then I've been doing the C&V thing pretty hard. I can't imagine the way things would have gone if I had bought that Surly.