I've completed the replacement and have some notes that might be useful to those of you doing this in the near future.
1) Removing the strut braces and cowl cover gives you more space in the rear to work in. It's only a few screws/bolts/nuts and I think it is worthwhile. With those parts removes, I was able to use a torque wrench on every valve cover bolt. The only exception was the passenger side stud that acts as a ground and onto which the plastic ignition coil cover snaps.
2) I bought replacement valve covers which came with the gaskets, grommets, and bolts all in place. Leaving the bolts in the cover keeps the gasket from falling off of the valve cover during installation. You could even use some little foam pipe spacers to keep the bolts in the raised position.
3) When removing the covers most of the old DreiBond was stuck on the gaskets. But some could stay behind on the heads and could easily fall inside the engine. Keep an eye out for the old DreiBond and make sure you remove all of it and that none fell into the engine.
4) I installed the spark plug tubes onto the heads first and then fitted the valve covers. That seemed to work well.
5) If you are getting new valve covers or are getting your old ones powder coated, keep in mind that all of the fasteners are one time use. For example, the bolts for the cam sensors are one time use and the new ones need to be torqued and stretched (4 Nm + 45 degrees).
6) I used a small torque wrench (graduated in in-lbs and Nm) for everything (except the strut brace nuts/bolts (34 Nm) - also one-time use) and it worked very well - easily getting to the rear bolts without the need for swivel joints. I used that wrench and a variety of extensions and sockets.
Now for some photos I took along the way.
Looking pretty clean at 45K miles:
New and old valve covers:
Spark plug tubes in place:
Ready to torque everything down:
