I did eventually consider replacing the control arms: cheap-wise (and I am) control arms at their cheapest are perhaps $40-50 each with ball joints (each upper and each lower: much more most of the time). If I was sure I could get what I needed, AND knew how hard these were to deal with, I might have gone that way. The problem is, the lower control arm requires removing the spring, and it's a BIG spring: I'm not really confident in my spring compressor handling that spring. I got all my front-end parts in an ebay package, something like $120 for all 4 ball joints, and both tie rods (both ends), and the idler arm, so they were really cheap -- I'm really in the red right now, so I've had to go super cheap on this, I'll probably regret it later but hopefully that will be when I have a little money... My mechanic later told me he would have put on all the ball joints and the tie rods (and maybe the shocks) for $350 labor, which I might have done if I'd known what I was getting into, though I think he couldn't be making money at that rate. I think he's being nice to me... I suspect $600-1000 is more like reasonable labor for that, though he wasn't including the hubs.
Eventually I realized that I could take the upper control arm off easily, and then I could press out the old upper ball joint and press in the new one on my shop press (after I'd bent my ball joint press, of course). It took a LOT of force to get the ball joint out, there was no chance my ball joint press could have done it (if I'd heated the arm, I think it might have been possible).
Getting the upper arm out of the way gave me much more access to the rivets that I had to drill out below. But that was still hard work (actually, I've only done one side so far)... even after I've cut off both heads, I couldn't get the rivets out with a 3# sledge and a drift punch. So I drilled about 3/4 of the way down through the rivets, and THEN used the punch: that way, it tended to counteract the swaging of the rivet stem in the ball assembly, vs. contributing to it. It was still hard to get them out, in all 4 cases. And I'm not really happy about the fit of the new ball joint, before I tighten down on the 4 bolts there's definitely some play. Another reason to get a new control arm. If I do it again (or if these become loose), I'll probably go that way.
As an aside, pulling the hub off the spindle was an ordeal too. What I eventually did, after a fair bit of beating on it with no progress, was take my 10-ton porta-power, using the little shoe-horn jack (which is rated at 1000#), positioned it on one side between the hub and spindle (to provide constant background pressure, and to counteract twisting forces) and then beat on the other side. It came off eventually with that approach. We'll see if the other side goes any smoother.
Well, I just wanted to document progress so far. I'm about to start putting together the first side this afternoon, and I'm hoping to start taking apart the second side too... I haven't been able to get the shock off yet, since the bolt/stem just spins, but I haven't spent much time on it. I don't have air tools, I suspect an impact wrench, air chisel, etc. would make some of these things go smoother.