Never done a CV on a Grand Prix before, but I can tell you there is not near enough room to do it that way on the majority of cars.
All the people that remove the strut to knuckle bolts are rookies.
Its a breeze doing it the ball joint way when you actually know how to man handle a pry bar.
Yeah you should not have to remove the ball joint, strut or tie-rod to change the cv, just turn the wheel and pop out the transmission side first.
and didn't need an alignment.