I'm not sure it was much more work than some of the other techniques people use. For example, I've heard of people individually gluing on hundreds of brush bristle clippings. Or laying down hundreds of lines of white glue. And it was definitely faster than waiting over a month for a shipment to arrive from overseas!

The standard technique of making your own "rib stitch strips" seem pretty fast and the results look good on most models. I think that's what I'll probably use on my DrI.