Is There An Honest Auto/Body/Painter In SoCal?

You say “Like everybody else I want the best job but can't afford to pay $15,000 or more for a good paint job...”
So, do you want the BEST job, or do you want A GOOD PAINT JOB (using your words)? A jump from “good” to “best” can be huge, just like the amount of extra time and expense it takes one of us to turn a 14 second car into a 13 second car. It’s not incremental, it’s more logarithmic.
The shop I work at does not work on older cars, but when we get a car that’s been keyed, let’s say, that needs a complete refinish, consider this. A few hours of sanding and feathering out scratches and painting the whole car with PPG would run about $5000 to $7000 depending on the size or the car and number of doors. Customer gets a lifetime warranty and they look great. Is it an Oakland Roadster Show quality, or, like you say, “BEST” job? Honestly, no. It has light peel in the clear coat, just like a factory finish does. If you look real hard, you might find a couple flaws. Would I be proud to have this result on my car? Hell yea!
What exactly are your expectations? I gotta think there’s a good handful of shops in SoCal capable of giving you a really good job that have a successful track record and maybe some good Yelp scores down there.