I must have poor eyesight. Not only did I think my side moldings were painted body color for the longest time, I didn't notice the bumpers were a different color for a long time either.

There are several ways to think about paint. You can spend a ton or you can spend a little and in the long run they'll likely both last the same amount of time before a repaint will be in order. It's just one of them will be show quality and one will not. To be honest I'd consider the Maaco route. OEM paint on our cars is pretty shitty as it is. I'd just make sure I understand crystal clear what I am getting for my money. What kind of prep work will be done, what kind of paint and process, warranty/guarantee, all the fine print being understood. The most I'd spend on a Maaco paint job would be $1K and the most I'd spend on any paint job would be $2K to $3K. Now I'm talking all paint work and little to no bodywork, just fixing a few dings with some glazing putty, or maybe some rust spots that you could put a finger over. Now, if you're capable of doing some of your own prep work fine, but I wouldn't breath a word to whoever paints your car that you did the work. If possible cover the work up and if they discover it and say anything about it, which they likely won't, you didn't know about it. The reason I say this, is that you can't give them that edge, the window to say, "Well we can't guarantee our work over the top of someone elses work." I don't know if they do say that kind of thing or not, but I wouldn't doubt it, so be prepared. It's your investment, and you don't want to pay for a service/product and not get all the benefits of what you're paying for, being the guarantee/warranty that Joe Schmoe gets when he comes in and gets the same thing done, but doesn't get screwed out of the warranty/guarantee because he didn't do any of the prep himself. That would suck, especially when it's your fault by trying to save money and doing it yourself. So there's some things to think about. Let's say you did a crappy job of repairing a few dings, and you paid them to include repairing any dings that they find. So they missed your crappy one because it was almost not there, you know it's there, so you say, "Hey, what's that?" And they fix it or refund you some money. I'm not saying take these people to the bank, but just be sure you get what you paid for, that's all.