Interesting to know that the GoPro doesn't automatically create a video during timelapse. My Panasonic camcorder does this, so it's really not any work at all creating timelapse that way. What you describe with having to chain together a bunch of individual graphics images in order to create a video doesn't sound like a lot of fun. And yeah, working with this sort of stuff does pretty much require a PC with a significant amount of horsepower. When I generate the videos I do, I am thankful that the program I use takes advantage of the graphics board I have in my PC, as that does make a significant difference right there in generation time.
Sounds like the final video you would get would be a quite large file. I'm not sure YouTube would even accept something so large, as last time I checked there was a limit on filesize. Anyway, I'd be curious to hear how long the 24 hours actually worked out to be with that timelapse file.
Live and learn with this stuff. Without a doubt I've had my share of creations that went into the scrap heap when I saw the results I really got. And from the number of views I see on YouTube with all of the stuff I've published there, certainly my own opinion of the quality of my own videos is not shared by very many people.
But then again, I believe the trick there is to include a few nude pics of women to get the views count up.