I'll leave it up to you to judge the strength of your own position.
I fundamentally disagree with your line of reasoning though (on a theoretical level). Hiring a 2nd rate employee is much more expensive and more effort in the long run than relocation costs would be. As you say its contingent on skill level - nobody is going to fly in the worlds best cab driver when the local can do an acceptable job at driving the cab around the place but at skill levels beyond that you very quickly get to a point where getting an employee that is 5% better is worth a lot of money.
That being said - you are kinda eyeballing a job market that must be pretty popular with Saffers right now, so that does lessen the chances of paid relocation quite a bit.

So your planned course of action is probably the right one despite my theorising above.
