This End Up, Classic Queen Platform Bed - Update and Improvements

We emptied out our storage unit of everything coming to Boston. One of the items we brought, that we have not had with us for two years, is our This End Up Classic Queen Platform Bed (my posts about the bed). When we went to reassemble the bed we found that the brackets for holding up the sides were rusted. We took a trip to Home Depot and looked for brass brackets as replacements but could not find what we wanted. Instead we wound up with brushes to remove the rust and paint to cover the brackets.
For brushes we used HDX Assorted Mini Brushes (3-Pack) and for paint we used Rust-Oleum Professional High Performance Enamel Gloss Black Spray Paint. I also used Permatex Fast Orange Fine Pumice Lotion Hand Cleaner as a lubricant with the brush and to help clean off the rust.
Here are some of the rusted brackets next to some of the cleaned brackets.

 

These are the brushes used. I mainly used the stainless steel and brass brushes for removing rust.

This is after the first layer of paint, done outside.

The first layer of paint was not quite good enough and it was moist outside (raining) so I decided to use one of our old less desired storage bins as a paint booth and put on another two layers over two days.

Here are the brackets being mounted.

In a prior post someone commented about what I thought about the quality of the bed. I mentioned that a particular issue we had was that the drawer sections just use a very thin piece  of plywood that one is expected to screw the cross-boards into. We ended up reinforcing this with some trimmed thin pieces of wood filed and sanded to fit. This is much better.

Below is the assembled except for platform and mattress.

Concluding thoughts:
This End Up has added additional stains which look nice.
If you are buying this bed, assembling it once, and not planning to move it the reinforcements are probably not necessary or a concern. We have owned the bed since 2014 and have moved it five times and assembled it three times (moved to a storage unit twice). We therefore find the reinforcement a great improvement.
I also hope This End Up has improved (painted or replaced) the brackets so they will not rust. The brackets have either been in an apartment assembled with the bed or in a climate control storage unit in a plastic bag. I would not have expected them to rust.
We are planning to get a new mattress for this bed in the near future, though that has to do with the mattress and not the bed frame.
We still really like the bed and our custom finish. We think it would be good if This End Up were to make the improvements I have noted here (though they may have already done so).