Believe it or not, I worked with the aspirin idea a couple of years ago and never got it to work. I believe it can be made to work, but at that time I didn't have the skills or stuff to really attack it correctly.
Even if one were to conquer easily made anthranillic acid, one still has the problem of o-toluidine to conquer and you and I both hate the iron reduction and it didn't seem like the tin one was any better. Zinc is pretty nasty also, and I haven't completed working it up yet. But I stumbled over the tolidine thing and this just looks too promising.
Now, how does one break a carbon to carbon bond between two rings??