I don't see either of these boats as particularly "distressed," and certainly not "junkers," nor do I necessarily espouse "buy a crummy boat because you are going to replace everything anyway." Both the hulls look pretty good. I just have a method for refit. Nor did I say I was going to replace the chainplates. I refitted an Endeavour 40 around 12 years ago. I motored it from Coral Bay to Independent Boatyard, about 12 miles, with a little sailing. Everything looked O.K., the old Perkins ran fine, no fishooks in rigging, etc. When I got it in the yard, I ran halyards to stand by the shrouds so I could pull chainplates. The chainplates looked fine, with little stainless caps and caulk. No indication of leaking. I pulled the three on starboard first. Had to cut holes in the furniture to get at them, through bolted on the hull with stove bolts. Put a block underneath from the inside, tap up with a hammer on the bottom of the plate, the top half of two out of the three simply popped through the deck and the bottoms fell into the furniture. Same thing on the port side. And these were 25 year old "typical" flat chainplates. So I pull chainplates and check them. You can't see that 3/4" to 1.25" that is captured in the deck. That's where they fail.
Later, because I didn't replace the apparently "good" steering cable linkage, it failed at a very inopportune time. I now replace that cable and clamps and have a good look at any chains as well. I do what it takes to keep the boat floating, without concern, and going forward (sails, rigging and engine).
I'm a zealous advocate of knowing the boat, every wire, every through hull. 40 year old bronze has lost a lot of its composition. Standard procedure, even on 20 year old boats, to punch all the through hulls, replace, properly back them and bond them. I've pulled apart 2 cylinder Volvos, Yanmars and up to 6 cylinder Detroit 671. It ain't rocket science (although Swedish engineers put the decimal "comma" in the wrong place a couple times in the Volvo manual - there was a wasted day).
Either of these boats I could probably throw in the water after a weekend of cleaning and dithering. I just don't know what's in the mast for wiring, nor what the aluminum to stainless connections look like at the masthead and below. I don't know how the centerboard is secured or if the pennant is any good. One of the boats has some cutless slop, the other doesn't. All this stuff gets done. I know yard monkeys, I've seen them in operation from Maine to Grenada to Northern California. I prefer my work except when it comes to specialty machining, REALLY involved glasswork (e.g., stern tube) and the like. As far as the chainplates go, though, without yanking them, that little tidbit would always be in the back of my mind. Here's my 50' Navy Utility refit a few years ago. I did 90% of the work alone:
https://www.google.com/search?q=50%27+N ... ypDckooIM: