Unless you are a really really good do-it-yourselfer and have a bitchen set of tools and plenty of time I would not tackle it. Not that it cannot be done, their are people out there that have definitely done it. Speaking from experience, it takes me one whole day and I mean all frickin day long to do one. If I ever got serious about doing one and busted my ass at it I could shave some time off of it but I have always just figured it will take me a day and when I am done with it it will be right and tight and bitchen. There are a couple places where it is nice to have a couple of guys, like when you remove the dash and reinstall it and when you pull the actual air box. As far as extra stuff, you might want to hang a new heater core while you are there, definitely replace the plastic "elbow/arm" for the recirc servo, new pollen filter, check the heater hoses while you have them disconnected and replace if necessary. $1500.00 is not too bad for that job, I have seen higher qoutes and that is right about what I charge to do them. If it were my car and I just bought it I would stuff a couple of cans of 134 in it just to see how long it takes to leak out. I have a few customers that come in 1-2 times a year for a top off as it beats the price of a new evap.

Good luck
Mark