Pool Draining vs Reverse Osmosis on a 25 yr. old pool

[steve1189]

Hello all- I've never owned a pool before, my wife grew up with one and we've bought a house w/ an inground concrete pool.
For some unknown reason when they built it they put raised corners for a few plants on 2 edges which has prevented us from installing a cover. We live in Southern Nevada now and with the water shortages that are coming (the area's water supply from the Colorado River is being cut 7% this year) we'd like to get the cover installed during the winter. That would require the raised bed areas to be dug up over a day or two and decking installed. The pool would need to be empty in order to get falling debris/tiles out. (Since we had one day of rain over the last 5 months I'm not concerned about water table popping the pool out!!)
When we bought the house 10 years ago the pool was half empty and green - a result of the 2008 crisis. Have not had any problems as a result and frankly we've never needed to change the water until this year to address dissolved solids/chemical build up in the pool. This would be the time to get the cover installed.
Now, one contractor whose company been in the business for 37 years, says that ANY temporary draining of the pool will result in the pool getting a lot of blisters/flaking. He said, his company often gets calls to repair pools for that reason after the fact that the owner wasn't advised.

While there are a few areas I see that do have flakes we haven't had any problems as a result of the pool being half filled for months before we bought it.

His suggestion to get the cover installed is to literally REMOVE the plaster and put in new plaster. That costs an added $10,000 (aside from the demo and the cost of the cover install raising it another $8,000). That makes the installation of a cover prohibitive IF ACCURATE.

Now Reverse Osmosis costs about $525. That bypasses the issue of what happens if we drain and fill the pool. There's also the option to partially drain and fill repeatedly to change the water over - but just filling the pool once costs about $400.
So, it boils down to this ( and I will continue to check online to see if this is otherwise reported):
DOES ANYONE KNOW, OR HAS HEARD, THAT DRAINING A 25 YEAR OLD CONCRETE POOL FOR ROUGHLY 4 DAYS CAN/LIKELY WILL RESULT IN SERIOUS PLASTER ISSUES?
Thanks in advance.

[Denniswiseman]

Please show some images so we can advise as there may be other options to draining

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[Teapot1]

I would try and get hold of Kim Skinner, an expert on plaster in pools.
http://www.poolhelp.com/home/about/kim-skinner/