Well I tried the Gorilla glue method with a clamp...didn't work. However I'm happy to report that it seems after sitting for a day or two the crack for the most part goes away on its own. Problem is, as soon as you start wet sanding again, it comes back.
I've decided to forge ahead with color and clearcoat, and just not shoot the problem area yet. When the rest of the guitar is done, clearcoat and all, I'll mask it off in plastic and just hit the crack area with more daphne blue. Then carefully wet sand, re-mask, shoot clearcoat, and sand to blend. PITA but you gotta do what you gotta do...
As it turns out there were...ahem...some high spots...I think these may also have been a side effect of wet sanding. Most of them are covered by the pickguard, bridge, etc. so I'm not worried about it. Like I said before, any imperfections we'll just call "accidental relic'ing".
Here's where I'm at, ready for clearcoat:
Weird high spot between the neck and neck pickup, on one side. The rest are mostly covered. There are also some sand-throughs on the edges here and there, but I can live with them and I knew once I did this the resale value was going out the window anyway. Here's a quick and dirty mockup:
I've since decided I don't like the brownface era amp knobs after all, so I'm ordering standard tele knobs. I'll post a final pic hopefully in a couple days time permitting.