When I was working on a BMX project last year I used a chemical remover. Much quicker and better. I was down to bare metal and cleaning up within an hour. You can pick the stuff up at PepBoys for about $10/can. Aircraft paint remover I believe.
Once the frame is void of paint, wipe it all down to clean it off. Make sure you are wearing rubber gloves so that no oils from your fingers gets on it. I applied several light layers of primer until the whole thing had the equivalent of 2 good coats if you will. I then painted the same way.
You are on the right track. Two things, make sure you shake the paint really well. I shake for a good 2 minutes before painting. Second make sure the area you are painting is warm enough as is the actual paint and surface to be painted. I had the same problem with cracking paint when i was trying to paint the crank arms on my project. I ended up doing the job in my basement with a box fan set up acting as an exhaust fan out of the basement window. The wife was hot but I made a plastic bubble in the room for me to do the painting in and it actually worked quite well. The change in temperature really helped the paint to stick where it was supposed to and there was no more cracking.
Lastly, I have been thinking of doing this again myself to my Peace. I am thinking I want to do the black/gold theme. But I will end up taking up to a car body shop to paint it. The owner used to be one of my daughters soccer coaches and he said that they could paint it a sold color for me for $100! That is well worth my time and hassle free! Might be worth looking into.
I would be careful about applying the stickers to your rattle can paint job and then peeling them back off so that you have the outlines in black. Unless you had the decals made out of vinyl for you, the adhesive on the back of commercial decals is much more sticky and could very well rip the paint right off with it. Just a thought. If you have the decals in hand, you can take them to a sign shop and they can scan them in (can even use a picture) and then print them out on their machine (looks like a blue print printer) and simply make the decals for you. Not sure what the cost would be but if you are going to do it, then do it right the first time! Good luck.