He had the idea of having the roof sprayed with a nice high-end urethane bedliner. The truck accessory vendor said that he could do it and here you see the results.
There were several crackes in the roof's top but it was still structurally sound. The bedliners folks patched the cracks with some sort fabric and sprayed the roof. The cracks are virtually undetectable. The coating is very hard to the touch but still flexible. It has endured several years of outdoor storage in the Arizona sun and, except for the bird doo, looks brand new.