If given a choice between the two, I would choose the better overall pistol or the better price. If absolutely everything between the two was equal and it was too close to call and the only real difference was the MIM parts versus the silver parts, I would choose the MIM parts. Both are fantastic.
Complicated to do a full detail strip? Not really... certainly more complicated to re-assemble them, and you need to be comfortable using punches and tapping pins and doing so without scratching or dinging the frame. You often have to hold many little things and line things up and work a pin in to place, one man's "easy" is another man's "holy nuts I will never do THAT again!" so it's tough to judge at the question.
Blued guns will NEVER "need" a cerakote or Duracoat job. Some of those aftermarket spray-on or bake-on finishes look decent, I must say, but it will never be necessary. Consider that an old gun in really beat-up shape won't ever have "collector value" and you simply cannot use a spray-on finish to enhance or raise that "collector value."
Can you make it look better? Certainly! But the gun can be just as functional and 'protected' with the chemical bottle bluing and aluma-black stuff without going for a full spray-on re-do.
If cerakote is something you wish to do, I'm all in favor of doing what you like! But I will never believe that it could ever be "necessary." But I also know that they made 10,000 dumptruck loads of these S&W pistols and if you find or own a beater and you wish to cerakote it, don't ever let anyone try and talk you out of it like it's a shameful thing to do.
That's nonsense, enjoy the gun and know that there are 300 others for sale on Gunbroker right now if someone doesn't like the color you cerakoted yours. Especially when you find a beat-up one for low money, you should totally do what you want to do with it!
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