I am all for patina and semigloss or even a matte finish, but I would hesitate to add any texture to the paint. I do like a color matched liner in the bed, but I don't know that I'd like it on the rest of the truck. Of course, that is not to say it wouldn't look good if done right. And I get what you are saying, it would bother me to have done that much work on the paint/body and still have little imperfections that stood out to me in an otherwise shiny paint job. That's why all 4 of my previous projects have been left OG paint
On my previous truck I had to paint the bedsides and fake the patina. I tried to match the original primer color and use single stage color like factory, and then lightly sand in the normal wear areas to match the level of fade on the rest of the truck. I finished it off with some 000 steel wool for a semi-matte finish.