Were I you, I'd be looking for a sandblast and colorcoat.

Because of the dust, wet sandblasting is generally, the normal practice and can address the irregularities as well as remove the paint down to the original lime based stucco brown coat.

After the repairs are affected and the color coat and/or texture are applied, I would not paint the stucco. Because with another lime based product, brush coat, and a hudson sprayer, you can change the color at will, at less than 1/3rd the cost of paint.

Once you paint, thats it, you paint, or pay the price.

thanks snoonyb, we don't plan to repaint!

! Our first quote recommended power washing off the extant paint, fill in cracks, caulk, etc, apply a fiberglass mesh and a base coat or coats of stucco (several coats where the stucco is extremely uneven due to old rip outs/poor repairs) and then topcoat of dryvit. (cost of 7$/sq ft for materials and labor--seems reasonable but do we need this amount of work?).

What might be the advantage of this process or the advantage of wet sandblasting and color coat? It seems if we sandblast, we will get down to the original stucco coat, but there are some places where it is not there (e.g. windows filled in with a cement mix).

This is what I would do;the " wet sandblasting and color coat".

When you get down to the lime based product, you are dealing with similar products.
Even the repair products are similar and all the unevenness will be corrected.