Possible help rooting / flashing a LG LS770 (Sprint)

I have a POS LG LS770 (Sprint) UICC unlocked phone. In short, I hate this phone so much that I keep it around simply because one way or another I'm going to get revenge on the stupid morons at Sprint / LG who think hard locking the bootloader and ROM with LGAF is a "Good Thing".

I've had some success using pulling the partitions on it, and I'm able to use QPST & CDMA_DevTerm to change programming, but still cannot write the LAF partition. I'm told If I can get a different carrier's full firmware, it's easier to put a differentbootloader like CanogenMod or TWRP. I don't trust the sources for this firmware, and while I fully support that people need to eat, it's not like I can "Return" it if does not work. (I know, I know...)

I have looked up firmware flashing tools and I don't know if I want to pay 500$ for a programmer board and activation for one single phone, and I don't really want to be in the phone flashing business.

There is an opensourcetool ( https://github.com/Lekensteyn/lglaf ) but they haven't gotten anywhere with writing without bricking it.

Any of you have experience with flashing / rooting? I would love to hear your thoughts... I have to admit I'm a total newb and what little I do know is probably wrong.