Modern acrylics have almost the same durability as polycarbonate (lexan), so, unless you're going to be torturing this, I'd go with the acrylic.

Flame polishing works, but you may have to practice to get it right.

Another option is to sand with grades of emery paper, then do a final polish with jeweler's rouge. You can get small quantites of that in a liquid suspension by buying the liquid CD polishing medium.