The answer on plating is to find a plater who will polish exactly as you ask... as little or as much as you specify. When you find him or her, patronise nobody else, send Christmas cards, buy the occasional bottle of spirits. Cherish your plater or rather whoever does the polishing. I have some tragically ruined pieces of car and bicycle which were improved by polishers who knew better than their customer. Over the decades, I have only found two who do exactly what I request. Stuart Tallack in post industrial Sussex.
Postscript Maserati motorcycles or at any rate the fifty cc ones are almost on-topic. The frames were exiguous and the riding position necessarily sporty as if you sit up when braking, you take an awful lot of weight off the front of the bike. At Brands Hatch in the late fifties a lot of young enthusiasts used their (back on topic!) bicycles to get to watch the eggcup racers. Maseratis, Itoms and Demms should be given honorary bicycle status. I'd love to own one now.