If you don't have anything to effectively reflect and distribute the light evenly then the buttons that are closest to the flourecent tube will be really bright and the buttons that are further away will be dim. Nothing reflects light better then a mirror. Take a look inside your flashlight Howard.
Furthermore, plastic mirrors are dirt cheap at a craft store and I only used two of them. Chrome spraypaint is nothing but bright silver paint. It doesn't look anything like the cap that they put on the can so whoever uses it will be disappointed with the results. Tin foil is a bit better but still falls short of an actual mirror. Is this the only way to effectively light up your buttons without individually lighting each one ? No but it worked for me. My friends all thought that all my buttons had a little light inside of them. 
Two points you brought up..... Chrome spray paint looks exactly like it does on the cap unless you get some cheap, generic spray paint. I use it all the time. But let's just say that those who don't know how to paint aren't going to get good results.

Metallics need special attention, which usually means preparing the surface in some way. But for this application it's not going to make a huge diff.
Inexpensive is a realtive term. Your going to need quite large mirrors to line your entire cp and if you pay over 5 bucks total for the mirror rig, then that's waaaay to much imho. Trust me, I've done the tin foil bit, it works flawlessly. You may need to take some cardboard to angle the reflection a tad, but again, that's super cheap. Your not trying to look at yourself in your cab box, your just trying to distribute the light a little better.
