You can use a GFCI outlet to protect other (regular) outlets downstream. Hook the GFCI to "line" terminals and the rest of the downstream outlets to the "load" terminals if they're all wired in series.
If you wire it this way, you only need to buy one GFCI outlet.
Alternately, you could buy one GFCI circuit breaker and protect the whole string of regular outlets that way (though that's not likely to save much money).
I'd pull the existing outlets and see if you can suss out how they're wired. If there is a place to install a GFCI and protect several downstream outlets, do that. This may require you to understand reverse engineer how the electrical was run and is slightly (but only slightly) more complex than just noting where every wire came from and putting it back the same way on the new devices.
Carefully painted outlets wouldn't bother me, but I also wouldn't paint the new ones, mostly because they end up getting scratched and looking like crap if they get actual use (and in a kitchen, they do).
There are cheap, builder grade outlets. I would go one step above the cheapest range. You don't need to pay $12/outlet for the hospital grade outlets, but I don't like the very cheapest $0.40/outlet ones, particularly for a kitchen where a lot of plug/unplug cycles happen and some high amperage (heater, microwave, blender) loads are used.