I think that is as good as it might get. It takes a ton of work to get over a century of old paint off a house. My contractor estimated it would take the better part of a year to get our carpenter gothic "close to perfect" if we wanted to go down to the original wood. No thank you. Part of the charm of an old house is the history written on its walls by the many lives that have happened there. If you want perfect, you should go with new construction.

Curious though, why did they recommend stain? I would do paint myself. You can patch any dents/dings and it will look smoother if done well. A stain will always show anything that is a "character mark" on the wood.

Lead paint is very hard to remove. It looks like the siding was in bad shape before. I too want to know why they recommended a stain. Need a better photo, looks like some bare wood was missed on my screen. Are they doing another coat?