I'd start sooner rather than later, modding the cases is a nightmare for me. It's not that it's that difficult, it's just very time consuming and the whole time I feel like the soldering iron is going to fly off and hit me somewhere (once you've been burned by these things you never forget). I have yet to find a rhythm while doing this and w/other tedious projects I tend to watch tv or listen to music, but this one for some reason makes me quite nervous (I also hate using the soldering iron). I also question (even with proper ventilation) how safe this is since burning plastic (and low quality china plastic at that) seems extremely hazardous. It should also be noted that the cold heat soldering iron won't work for this project. I think I'm going to switch over to trying to cut these things out myself....
Nate