If anything, I tip my hat off to you for posting this. I am highly thankful for the invaluable information you have here. Good Luck in your search for a perfect proofreader!
Under normal circumstances, I agree that you shouldn't use filters; but given the fact that you have pretty bad raws, they are your best option. I tried the method I would use and I got a pretty decent result:
For these circumstances, I use a method used/created by Maximum7. This is what you...