That hard work, specifically in the form of building an organization from the local level up, is something third parties usually fail to do. Historically, what usually happens is that they become vehicles for the edification of "the boss", whether it be Perot or Peroutka. That will lead nowhere, because either the party will disintigrate when the leader drops out, ala the Reform Party, or it will never get past the phase of being a small knot of self-styled righteous revolutionaries, like the Constitution Party.
Unless a critical mass of the people decide that they will work and suffer for a long time to attain that goal, the overthrow the Republican Party as the flagbearer of the Conservative movement, then the only option, especially for those of us worried about the short term, is to fight it out old-school-style in the primaries.