for all the hassle your better off getting a one year Non Immigration B visa that lets you stay for 3 months and do the vias run. If your over 50 then ther is the option is to get a retirement visa but you have to be over 50 for that and you need to have 800,000 baht plus in the bank or show you have a monthly income of over 65,000 baht.
http://www.thai-la.net/visa/retire.htm
In all my time in Thailand I have only ever know one person get Thai PR and he was married to a Thai university lecture and got a lot of help to do it from Thai lawers and as Siamcutey says it requires money lots of it
one other thing is you have to report to the police every 90 days regardless of the visa, to confirm your address.