I was in the same boat as you, I would listen to the guys with the experience saying a Hardtop would be quicker/easier, it wasn’t released at the time I was working on this or I would have looked at going that route

I can’t speak to how it will wear as I finished the playfield a year ago and I am still working on the cabinet.

Here is the basic method I used with the Fabulous Fantasies overlay on my Eight ball deluxe
Sanded the playfield
Sprayed two 2K 2pac clear in a can on the bare wood
Let it sit for about a month
applied the overlay wet using rapid tac
another two weeks to let it dry
Sprayed another two 2K 2pac clear cans on top
polished and reassembled
I had no wrinkling or any issue with reassembling, a few of the keylines aren't perfect

here are two pictures of the finished project

PXL_20201226_190202379 (resized).jpg

PXL_20201226_190339614 (resized).jpg