Well a heck of a lot of time has elapsed since I started this little project.
zrrion reminded me the other day that I hadn't updated this thread for quite a while. I was just coming back to life after having pneumonia and working on something like this sounded like a good task to get me moving again. I didn't have a ton of energy but I did get a little bit done.
A few more "before" photos:
Under the keycaps was extremely dirty. All sorts of dust, hair, dirt, etc.
I used a datavac air blower thing to knock most of it out.
This gave me at least something I could work with without creating a huge mess.
The next thing I did was desolder the switches
That was about all I had energy to do. I have a ton of free time this weekend so hopefully I'll keep up the momentum.