Our 50's era house is currently equipped with 100 amp electrical service.
We're considering upgrading the service to either 150amp or 200amp. There
aren't really any electrical problems right now, but we know that if we
wanted to replace some of our gas appliances with electric or do any
significant lighting enhancements (installing exterior lighting) we would
need the extra juice.

So, my questions are this

1) What exactly is involved in such a job? I have assumed that there would
simply be a run of new service from the pole to the house, replacing the
existing fuse box with a new circuit breaker panel, rewiring from the aerial
to the meter and from the meter to the breaker panel, and reconnecting all
the existing interior circuits to the new panel. Is there anything else? I'm
concerned that if we get an estimate it might include a few things that we
really don't need and I don't know enough about electrical work to really
understand what's necessary.

2) Does an electrical service upgrade have any impact on home value? A while
back we got a pitch to do this work from an electrician and he made the
claim that the work would more than pay for itself in terms of increased
value. I was very skeptical of this given the $6000 price tag.

3) What is a reasonable price to expect? When we bought the house our agent
recently had similar work done in his home and paid about $3000 (including
the fees the power company charged), we got a $6000 estimate but only got
one estimate because other priorities presented themselves. We're located in
a major metro area (Atlanta) if that matters.