Having purchased a painted car here are some tips from me. Unscrew the marker lights and CAREFULLY feel around the hole. If there was damage, there is a good chance they wrapped the body filler around the marker light hole to give it something to hold on to. This is what was done with mine. You want to be careful in case there is no filler so you don't cut your fingers. Inspect from inside the wheel wells for dents that would be masked hidden by filler and paint. I would also take the headliner off the doors since it pops out. You can possibly check for hail dents through there. Another tip would be tapping your knuckle on the metal along the rub strip. If there is body filler, it will sound different. This is by no means perfect and there might be better tips, but in retrospect, this would have helped me find out that the LFF had been damaged and maybe the slight dent in the door.

The paint on that car looks shot, and I doubt anyone would agree to this, but I'd ask to scrape some paint off in vulnerable spots to check for filler. This is how I actually found the filler on my car. I already owned it, but the nagging feeling in my head made me start scraping the LFF and I immediately found it. I was also told the same "it looks better this color" story about the paint, but it was evident afterwards it was done to hide body damage.

In terms of stripping the paint, it's rather easy. The most pain in the ass part is breaking rusty studs and bolts while disassembling the car. I used CitrusStrip and that shit peeled right off. I used razor blades to scoop it off. It's easy enough not to nick the stainless, but the grain is most likely trashed anyways so you'll end up fixing minor mistakes anyways. I did not use chemicals near the rubber and plastic because I was afraid of damaging them. Instead I walnut blasted everything around the plastic. This was the most time consuming step, but there was no damage as a result, only a massive mess of walnut shells. I'd 100% recommend doing this before any interior restoration cause it will make a mess.