Ask list member Ray Dobbins how much time it took him (in hours) to mix paint and fill 5 or 10 chips on his baby-blue 1972 colnago pantografata. You might be surprised at how much time gets burned up in such seemingly simple pursuits:
http://www.raydobbins.com/
I have heard high-end painters swear-off the pursuit of paint retouching jobs. It's an extremely thankless and frustrating pursuit, and they are (a) Never satisfied with the work, or (b) End up doing more work than a repaint but can charge only half as much without the customer getting upset, as retouching is much more tedious and difficult than repainting a frame. The painters I heard talking about it quietly agreed they would not do it any more, but did not want to advertise the fact, for fear of turning off customers.
- Don Gillies
San Diego, CA, USA