I painted mine with rattle can engine paint (high temp) from auto zone - on all three of my builds. All of them have held up remarkably well. The oldest one is almost 20 years old. No peeling or chipping, and the color is the same as when I applied the paint (before assembly). This is an area where going overboard will never pay for itself. Spraying with rattle can paint isn?t going overboard, but it?s close....
If your name is Rick Gray, and you are going after the Oshkosh Grand Champion award (which he has done at least 3 times), then you may be able to justify the extra effort, monetarily, since you want to sell it. But unless it?s for personal pride in your remarkable effort (which I think is worthwhile), there?s no reason to go extremes in protecting your baffles. On my last RV8, on which I won an outstanding workmanship award at SNF, my baffles were painted with rattle can
engine paint before final assembly, and I removed them and reinstalled them twice after initial assembly in the first year, and they still looked like they were just painted - no damage to the painted surface. I was careful, but if I would have needed to touch something up, it would have been very easy to do.