having never been through this experience, I'm just talking out my behind...
I don't know your budget, but I would wonder whether a percentage of it might be used for a trip to Healdsburg or Woodstock or even NAMM (to connect with the luthiers group that often has a hotel room with a ton of guitars to show off). At the same time, I can imagine that you might look at your budget and decide that 10-20% might go better to the guitar than to travel. Still...
or perhaps when you have narrowed down your choices, you might find owners of most or all of the builders' guitars in a specific metropolitan area and make a contact with them and then a trip there to play their guitars?
If you can't hear and play a guitar up close and personal, at least you have the opportunity to connect with current owners via phone & e-mail and can listen to recordings and watch videos. Of course, the downside is that no video or audio recording is going to capture the experience of the instrument. Microphones and placement do make a difference in what parts of the guitar's sound you hear and no recording can tell you how a guitar feels or responds.
Loreto sounds like an interesting place to live even if there aren't lots of high end guitars around
