Is $3,000 to pressure wash and repaint deck a fair price?

We bought our house 4 years ago. Our deck is not in terrible shape but it's not aging well. The wood is worn and peeling, and the railings are bowing outward, possibly due to the riverstone columns. We had quotes to expand it and have it resurfaced with composite that ran from $60k to $95k, which is well out of our budget. We had 5 guys come out, 2 gave quotes and we never heard from the other 3. We also had a painter come out and he wanted $3k to pressure wash and repaint the deck. I think we are going to do it ourselves and just not expand the deck unfortunately. I think we are going to go with a medium grey paint although it sounds like a paint will give us the same problems in a few years as well. My worries with a stain is that there are so many imperfections in the wood that we'll have to use a wood putty or something and a stain won't conceal that like a paint would. But I'm open to stain if that's the smart way to go.