It's amazing what one can do when he's too cheap to pay the m/c shop mechanics. They estimated 2-3 hours (at $95/per) for the labor! It's definitely not a quick job, but it's not scary ... Don't tell anyone, but once the tire, tube and the huge rubber band were off, it wasn't so mysterious - and I was quite relieved to see that the spoke nipples (end nuts) had a #3 Phillips/combo/square drive built-in - so my electric driver with the torque control carried the day. Of course, out of the 32 spokes, about a dozen of them were rusted to where I had to use a small Crescent wrench to free them up, but all of them, once freed, responded well to the driver. The installation trick seemed to be, to remove/install them one pair at a time and tighten gradually once all the new spokes were on.
Thanks for the support - Will let you know how it goes after the local shop reinstalls the tire for me; notwithstanding a dose of hubris!