It's really not very hard at all. I know where you're coming from though. If you've never done it before and you haven't yet read through the Helms, it can seem confusing. The only thing that you need to be concerned most with is removing the stock springs...but you've gotten a lot of input on that already. I've thought about doing a write up for swapping suspensions but I think there are a ton of them out there already.

$300 is a LOT of money IMO. You can get a pretty nice toolset for that much. In reality, all you really need to do most suspension related jobs on a civic are:

-3/8" drive ratchet
-a bar to slip over the ratchet for leverage
-10mm, 12mm, 14mm, 17mm regular sockets
-14mm deep socket
-a 17mm wrench or another 17mm socket on a ratchet or breaker bar

I very much recommend the following (although when I first worked on suspensions, I didn't have this stuff):
-at least 1 pair of jackstands
-a jack with at least an 18" max lift height
-a pair of 2x4s if that jack's min lift height is higher than your car's jack points
-wheel chocks (or 4x4" blocks of wood)

Some other nice things to have are:
-a hammer (preferably a BFH )
-a sturdy large screwdriver or punch
-another small jack
-a buddy to help out

Good luck though and keep us updated.