Personal Experience

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Well, I've been working on a project using plexiglass...

I'm essentially building armor for a halloween costume, but it involves a lot of persision cuts. I've also built a helmet out of the stuff. Anyways....

BE CAREFUL WITH PLEXIGLASS DUST AND FUMES!!!
Harmful if inhaled!!
And hurts if you get it in the eyes.
Not because the bits are sharp, but because they're usually melted and HOT. I burned my hand once with plexiglass dust. Always wear gloves / Goggles etc...

I've found that the absolute best tool for cutting the thin plexiglass is a dremmel/ rotary tool (You can buy them for $30-$40) with a cutoff saw attachment. Because it's rotary you don't get the vibration of a jigsaw that goes back and forth, which tends to snap the thing plexiglass. Also, it allows you to start cuts in the middle of a piece.

Also, you can easily move the blade away from the plexiglass so, if you start to melt it too much, you don't have to worry about getting your blade stuck into the glass and then breaking the plexiglass.

For Thicker plexiglass 1/4" and bigger, I used a jigsaw with a fine finish wood bit. It's kinda slow, and it'll cover your blade with plastic goop, but it'll get the job done.

Also, I did my cutting out side in the winter. So the ambient temperature was like -20 degrees Celsius ( I live in Canada ) so the plexiglass didn't melt as easily and when it did, it hardened again.

For smoothing out edges, I tried using a file first. It worked well with the thicker stuff, but was awkward to say the least with the thinner sheets, because the glass tended to bend rather than get filed.

I found that the rotary tool worked Extremely well at sanding. Where filling took like 45 minutes a piece, the rotary tool took about 5 minutes. I've also used an old soldering iron to smooth out the edges (Careful with this, only smooth with melting outside, Plexiglass gives off some pretty bad fumes).

If you need to cut extremely fragile or precise plexiglass, something that the rotary tool would snap (I can't image what but anyways...). You can use the soldering iron to "cut" via melting the glass. This also should be done outdoors or in a well ventilated area. The soldering Iron can also be used as a crude welding device for sticking the plexiglass together. Hot Glue kinda works...

If you need to bend/ shape the plexiglass, a heat gun will do the trick no problem (Depending on the thickness). Otherwise cook it in the oven (**fumes warning**). If you find that the edges get a bunch of melted plexiglass piling up around the cuts, you can usually just knock them off with a file or a blade.