> Just pop the ball joints and lube them liberally with dish detergent. The bellows will slide right over them.
That's what I did.  I lubed the boots with spray silicone - works great on rubber, but yes I have certainly used dish detergent many times.

>A right angle pick like Sears sells will pull the open ends onto the rack and the rubber biscuit easily.
I used my cotter pin puller.  I think I use that for everything except cotter pins.  For those, I get needle nose pliers into the hole, and then tap on the side of the pliers.

Funny, I tried following instructions about getting the boot over a spray can cover and then cutting the cover - had such a hard time with that I gave up and in less than 10 seconds I had the darn thing on.

Happy trails,
John