how big of a driveway do you have? professional crack sealers will clean the cracks way better than you could. they will tell you they can still open up again next year. its a constant maintenance thing but if done regularly it is manageable. if its a small driveway you can get some decent stuff from the box stores. with the cracks fill then check the next day and probably have to fill again.
just for reference in WNC we are paying around a dollar a liner foot for crack repair and a quarter a square foot for seal coating (probably cost more than that due to we were doing some large parking lots)
We've done ours several times. It's pretty straight forward and easy and works well. I don't see why you couldn't do it yourself with good results also.
Only time I've seen a coating peel off was that junk garage paint that isn't installed correctly. We've never had an issue with the asphalt sealer peeling off. I guess it could happen but I've never experienced it.
We used some this past week on some cracks, about 2200' of cracks. Seemed to work fine. We spent some time getting all the loose dirt and debris out of the cracks. Once that is done, never had an issue with the cold tar crack repairs.
Pressure wash the cracks then dry them with a leaf blower. Done this a few times in the past on the driveway at my grandparents place in NH. Cold tar sealer works just fine but a cleaner surface sure helps.