You aren't wrong at all McCreed.
The thing is with finishing is that there is more than one way to skin a cat, and it takes time to work out what suits your own process. Ozzbikes advice is correct for getting a good finish with acrylics on wood. It definitely works and if you use a 'high fill' product it will happen more 'quickly'. But you still really, really need to let it cure properly. The longer the better. And the same goes for top coats of acrylic lacquer. If you are patient the results can be outstanding.
That said, grain filling is worthwhile, especially if you want a natural/stained finish (which I realise isn't the case here). I haven't used shellac for it (but I am going to give it a go at some point) but I have used CA (superglue) and it really does speed up the surface levelling. So it would also work for a solid colour. One of the great things about CA is that it's almost totally non-reactive to all finish types. One of the hard lessons people often learn is incompatibility between fillers/primers and top coats. I know this isn't a problem with CA.
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