You mentioned not having a bench polisher to see the results or method, there's actually a video from VacLab where he shows how to shine up a Kirby G3. I do not know about the scratch removal method but I bet if one was to combine your methods, Kyle, for the hard sanding and polishing, and then use VacLab's methods for the final polish-up on the machine - I bet it will work out really nice. Dremel also has tiny polishing kits that will be useful for getting into hard to reach areas and little fine detailing.