I did end up using a soda blaster on a bunch of paint that I was struggling with. Harbor Freight sells a little spot blaster gun and it works pretty well with baking soda. It makes a hell of a mess, I used up 10 four pound boxes but it was a real time saver.
Next on my list before I did anything else was the tail lights and mounting brackets. The original brackets were pretty basic and because of how they mount to the bed, they wiggle and the driver's side cracked the fiberglass. In addition, the nut plate thing they used was terrible - a piece of aluminum with nuts taped to it. This will obviously not do so I had to improve on it.
First I built some new nut plates. These will not allow the nuts to spin when bolts are being tightened... they slip up inside the channel behind where the bracket is.
Then this is what I came up with for the light brackets. Two pieces of 2" angle and a flat piece to mount the tail light on. It will utilize the original holes plus one more on the buttom so that it can't wiggle.
Now that I've got these mocked up, I can go back to sanding.