Do whatever you want! It's yours to enjoy

Well if you think you'll have occasion to leave it locked up places, it might be an advantage for it to look old and beat up.

...do you like how it looks or do you not like how it looks?

You probably need to at least touch up the bare metal, to prevent or stop rust

My take: Ride as is if you can stand it, but there's no wrong answer.

I powder-coated a Motobecane of similar age and I don't regret it. The original paint job with hand-painted details must have been great, but decades of sun, rain, and neglect obliterated it. Restoration would have been starting over from scratch so I sandblasted and turned it into an electric blue beast of burden.

Somebody else can restore the original paint job 50 years from now. I'm just keeping the frame safe for them until they're done being born and growing up somewhere. It'll be waiting for them when they're ready.

Of course you can do what you want to do - leave it, strip and paint it, touch it up, turn it fuchsia...

But for me the real question on mucking with vs. carefully restoring (or leaving as is) comes down to whether I'd call it "vintage" or just plain "old."

I have my father's old steel 10 speed from like the 60s. Are there any drawbacks to riding around on one of these vs something new?

I just looked at how much the coating costs (100 - 500$) in my location. Some can restore it with stickers... but it adds to the cost. I have access to few old Favorit frames (old ČSSR bike maker), you are lucky to get 100$ for bike in perfect condition.

So go for it, I wanted to make some beater bike (for commuting) and I consider using it.

Might seem a bit out there, but color matched paint is so easy these days. Even if it’s faded, they can match that. You could just touch up the worn areas and try to leave as much original as you wanted. I’m kind of a traditionalists with old mechanical things though, so maybe this is bananas.

I recently repaint my old bmx and give it a fresh look before replacing stuff. I'd say it's worth painting it since you're stripping it apart to replace stuff anyway.

I bought a vintage racer in 2018 with the intention of fixing it up, repainting it, etc, as it had clearly rusty parts and exposed steel, and I ended up not bothering for one reason or another, but it was every bit as zippy and manoeuvrable when I had an accident on it last year that meant I had to chuck it in the tip. I shouldn't brag or whatever but I remember this little speed counter thing saying I was breaking the limit a few minutes before the crash.

Remove stickers, coat frame with varnish and enjoy the patina is what I would do.