After considering all the options and listening to Pedro's sage advice, I decided NOT to buy a new axle.
Instead, I went the ebay route. I found a selection of axles between $60-80. I used the "make an offer" function and landed one for $50 (free shipping).
The axle looked in decent shape - but there was a small tear in the boot right at the small side clamp. There was almost no seepage. It was so small, it might actually have occurred in shipping.
I removed the inner bearing and ziplocked it. Ultimately, I replaced it with my known good bearing which I had previously ziplocked.
On the exterior bearing, I carefully removed the boot and sampled a bunch of the grease with a clean towel. I could not feel any grit on my fingers. So I cleaned the remainder of the grease out. Two rolls of towels and 3 cans of brake cleaner and I had myself a clean CV joint. I looked at the balls and what I could see of the surrounds. (do they call them races in CV joints?) VIsually, the joint seemed fine. ( I know, only time will tell.) It did not have the flat spot that my old CV joint had. So I made the right choice....
Repacking was easy, but REALLY messy.
It took me a lot longer to reinstall than I thought it would. Although, in fairness, the biggest issue was trying to torque the hex bolts. I finally gave up - I just could not get my torque wrench in there. I am NOT happy about that, but I know they are not too overtorqued and they have locktite blue on the threads. I will have to re-check in a month or so. Hardly scientific, but....
The car was out on the road by 10:30. So, about 4 hours to clean, repack, reinstall and check my work. I had a few breaks during that time, but none long.
It only took about two hours to uninstall the half shaft, a lot of that was getting the car in the air. (twice - I forgot the 340 bolt before I lifted it the first time- duh).
All in, this is not a hard job per se. You do need to plan ahead and have proper tools on hand. The rental puller and ball joint set came in really handy. I used a combination of instructions on the web. Basically, I preferred to move the suspension than the exhaust and undercarriage. If the exhaust was new and not corroded at all, I might go the other way though. YMMV.
Overall, I would probably not want to do this job again, but I will if I have to. If there is a next time, I might not bother swapping boots etc. If half shafts are that inexpensive, I might just swap and cross my fingers. You can get 20 ebay shafts for the price of one new. That - to me - was ultimately easy math since the shafts themselves are not high failure items.