"cathy jean" writes:

Has anyone else ever dealt with these issues before? To me, it just
seems wasteful to take a perfectly good tub and throw it away -- but
then, we don't want to invest all this money in a bathroom remodel and
have a tub that looks bad around the edges.

I agree 100%

Bathtubs are routinely refinished. Look em up in your local yellow
pages. The folks I used also did tile refinishing which you might
consider as well if your tile is just ugly, but structurally sound.
These same folks turned a lovely dated aquamarine tile job into a
lovely white, covering all the grout as well and it looked fantastic.

The supplier I used used this process. There may be an affiliate in
your area:
http://kottkoatings.com/

These before and afters match my experience (though mine weren't quite
as dramatically awful in the "before" they were equally nice "after):
http://kottkoatings.com/koated_gallery.html



Best Regards,
--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/