Carpentry and Woodworking - Wooden Entrance Door

I have a nice wooden entrance door with a number of decorative panels (lights?). It faces south, and the sun in the winter (through a full glass storm door) has done a number on the poly finish.

Is it better to sand it off, restain and refinish ... or use a chemical to remove the old and blistering poly?

There are also some water stains from a roof leak over the doorway, since repaired.

What finish should I use under these conditions? Is tung oil better than poly? Thanks!

We have double wood doors facing west at our main entrance with full storm doors, and the sun did the same to ours before a now-protective shade tree line grew up.
We used a chemical stripper, sanded, re-stained and re-polyed ours, and they look like new.
Good Luck!
Mike

I looked into what finishes are used in these type of applications and found out that the finishes manufacturers use are far superior to what is available at the local hardware store.

They use conversion finishes. The disadvantage of these is that they put out a lot of fumes and usually need to be sprayed.