Brett,
With all due respect my personal opinion is that a bike with proven race provenance (such as a Merckx bike, or your Maertens) should be left as is. I do not think that restoration is appropriate, to me it strips away all the connections to photo's written endorsements that the frame is the real deal etc. I would much prefer to see such a bike with full patina then cleaned up, sanitized and prettified.
Marty Eison
Dallas, Texas