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I can address several of your questions but not all. First, putting dye in the refrigerant mix was a great idea. If you had to re-charge the system twice, there is a leak somewhere. Most likely, it's somewhere other than the evaporator. If so, that is good news because the cost to fix will likely be much more affordable.
The US price for the evaporator in the A/C housing unit ranges from $700 to $1800 depending on whether you by the OEM part in the aftermarket or from a dealer. The labor to replace it is something like 10 hours. One can buy the evaporator unit alone, but one must take the old housing apart to reinstall it. And while you're there you'd need to replace the foam gaskets. This adds a lot of hours to the job.
I fixed my A/C several months ago. I thought initially that the evaporator was leaking. It turned out it was the expansion valve. I also needed to replace the A/C fan ballasts on the driver and passenger sides to get the fans to run at low speed. Total cost was $250 in parts and $250 in labor at an A/C specialty shop. The dealer quoted me over $1000 for the same job. My A/C puts out now tons of 60 F air now when operating on high. I don't have any idea how much deteriorating foam degrades performance.
Good luck.
BTW: you can buy a UV light on the internet for about $10 US. I did and it was really helped me to find the leak.
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