How can I maximize my stay using a 6-month multi-entry tourist visa in Thailand?

Where do these people come from

Can anyone serious imagine all this drama, trauma and hassle? In the heat?

You can not get at, but close to 9 months. You'll have to exit and re-enter a few times to fill your 6 months up, but if you then time your last entry on the last day of your visa validity, you get 60 days from that point (that's 59 beyond the validity date). You can then even extend that to 90 days. The theoretical maximum number of days doing this is 269, but as the count will start right when your visa is issued, you'll lose some of that time coming to Thailand. Also, 269 days falls a little short of 9 months out of itself.

One last detail: in the last 90 days of your stay, you need a re-entry permit if you go abroad to keep it active.

Border bounce twice

3 month tourist and student visa. 6 month student visa. 1 year marriage,retire ,work permit and student visa.

What you could do is apply for the METV, while you're waiting you could fly to Thailand and enter visa exempt and get 30 days. When your METV gets approved, you can exit thailand and activate the visa on reentry. Then follow what Brandon has said.

You cannot get 9 months, but you can get close to it.

A METV is valid for 6 months from the day it's issued. You are going to lose a couple weeks most likely since you need to apply early enough to be safe that it will be issued before you travel but not so early that you lose a lot of time on the visa.

Once the visa is issued, every single time you enter Thailand until the end date on the visa, you will be stamped into Thailand for 60 days. Each one of these entries can also be extended a single time for 30 days. That's 90 days in total for each entry.

So you enter Thailand and do 60+30.

Then you leave and return and do 60+30.

Just before the visa expires, even if it's the last day of the visa, you leave and return and do 60+30. That's almost 9 months.