For club use - can't attest to tournament use, but maybe others can - you can buy some conductive thread from me. We've been using this for around four years now and, while I no longer have access to the ones we did four years ago, I know that lames we treated up to two years ago are still going strong.
We've taken really, really dead lames and brought them back to a state where there are no dead spots; for localized areas, it's often enough just to run a few traces through them, and for whole panels you can lay down a denser pattern. My current lame was dead over most of the front panel and large parts of the back. It now has rows of zigzag stitching at ~1 cm intervals over the dead space and no dead spots. I think that probably took about a quarter to half an 80-yard spool, and at $6 a spool it's way cheaper than patching.
This can be a little time-consuming, particularly for a big bunch of lames. But for the dying but not-quite-dead, you'd likely find that a quilting of 5cm squares would suffice.
You'll find the web page at
http://members.shaw.ca/ubik/thread/
(p.s. - Actually, I think I've sold thread recently to one or two people down your way. I'll check my email and let you know who, so you can see what kind of experience they've had with it.)
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