When I was working with a friend we worked out a nice way of replacing a top on production guitars, that should work for you as well.
Join the new top, inlay the rosette, and cut the hole the same size as the original. Remove the fingerboard from the guitar (heat usualy works) and clamp the new top down on top of the old one, with the soundhole and center line lined up. Trace the shape onto the new top, and trim it to match the outline _exactly_. Now brace it up.
Remove the old top by routing around it just inside the linings. Stop on either side of the end blocks, and saw across inside them to remove the top. Scribe around the edge of the top just inside the binding and chip up the top wood that is glued to the liners and al the purfling. Scrape all the glue off the liner surfaces, and be careful not to touch the binding.
Trim the width of the binding off the edge of the new top carefully, so that it can drop into the space, and inlet the bracing. You may need to fill in old inlets. The ideal situation is to drop in the new top with it just butting against the binding all the way around. You will almost never get it just right, but close is OK. Make sure you don't trim the new top to some shape that will distort the sides: that was why you started out tacing the shape of the top off the _assembled_ guitar.
Glue the new top in. It's likely enough that it will be just a little proud of the bindings all the way around. If not you might need to build it up a bit here and there with tape or something. I use spool clamps to glue on tops.
When the new top is in you can use a marking gauge to scribe inside the bindings for the purfling groove. This will cover up any little boo-boos and gaps in the shape. A tiny chisel will be needed to dig out the wood, and, of course, the gauge has to be _sharp_.
Once the purfling is in you glue on the fingerboard and finish the top. The big advnatage of this system is that you _don't_ have to replace the bidings and touch up and refinish the sides. This might not be too much of an issue with your guitar, but on something older it can present problems, as the orange color of aged lacquer is hard to match. I like to French polish the top myself. The main tricks, of course, are getting the shape of the new top just right, and inlaying the purfling. It's far less difficult that it might seem, and saves a heck of a lot of finish work, which is always more time consuming than you'd like.
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Quit playing around and cut as close to the side as possible. Chisel off the bindings, purfling, and lining. Reline it, sand it, cut brace pockets, add new top, route purfling and binding chanels. I managed to gouge the top of the sides pretty good in a few places, but they disappeared under the linings and binding.
