Ideally it will save you a ton of time. There are actually a lot of people out there in our same position and the information is scattered and only tidbits here and there. I kept the notes to help myself going thru each upgrade since I realized it was going to be repeative and then wanted to share and help others since some helped me (like Ken Task who was an incredible help). The thing that saves a ton of time and headaches is simply accepting the fact that you need to do MySQL dumps and import into new empty databases for the first few upgrades. All the other options have side-effects to your classes. This was the cleanest. Once you do the first couple you realize how easy it is and then the MySQL dump approach becomes a great backup mechanism. There is also the tidbit information that is not well documented where this post will ideally help people - like the config.php changes, the password salting and otheres. The only thing I haven't done yet is switch the DNS as I'm still making some final updates since I completed the upgrade. That will require a MySQL dump, edit the sql file to change the current <IP Address> to be my domain name and import it again. Ideally this final step goes smoothly. ;)
Good luck and I hope these notes help you out!
