earl, maaco, do it yourself auto paint, or both?

I have a 93 Dodge Spirit with170,000 that still runs well. The paint has had a history of peeling off to the primer, since i bought it in 95. The dealer made good on repainting the hood back then, but since then, i've had to spot it with touchup paint and the like. Now i have a big area that's peeled to the grey primer on the roof. Obviously I don't want to sink a lot of money into a paintjob on a car that will only be used for another year or two. My choice is to bring it to earl, maaco , do it myself somehow cheaply (if possible with a top of the line Wagner powerpainter), or do a combination of sanding myself (as some suggest) and taking it to Earl or
Maaco. Is it possible to shoot any type of auto enamel with a top of the line electric sprayer. (It sprays thick paint like latex with no problem, as

Just theory here, but my guess is that with the right kind of paint and very high quality brush one could get a result that could be wet sanded and polished to look pretty good.

Much like a proper touch up procedure but on a large scale.

My brother once painted his old Ford Econoline with enamel with a brush. It actually didn't look all that bad. I also knew a guy in college who painted his car with spray cans. Took a couple cases. I think my brother's brush job looked better...

Some years ago, my brother painted my car with a Wagner electric gun.
It looked good from across the street if you squinted and it was raining in the dark. In other words, the oranges you buy are smoother. The newer guns out today are a bit better, but I would find an old hood or other car metal or your brother's car and try it out on that first. You may find that the electric gun may be spitting droplets of thinned enamel paint instead of atomizing, that you don't see with latex. You could also sneak out at night and paint your neighbour's car for him, just to get the practice of moving the gun around. He'll be very pleased especially if it's a Volvo .

Might be hard to do with metallic paint...

I've been successful painting small areas with paint cans. But I tried to do a hood with paint cans and it just drys too fast to allow you to work your way across and down and get back to the top before it's too dry to blend the next pattern in. It was still an improvement over what it was (all chalked and peeled) but hardly a good looking job.