Thanks Googly!
I had thought of using dry transfers, but I wasn't able to find the ones I wanted. Maybe they're out there and I missed them? I also thought of making my own decals. I tried it on the pink tank and it worked great. I went so far as to scan in the kit decal sheet to work from,but in the end it would have taken me as long or longer to finish the graphics work and make them than I spent making the kit decals work. But if you've got good graphics to work from, those decal making kits work great!
The Panther is already in the queue...
I'm in the process of accumulating goodies for it, while I do some other builds. I'm aware of the kits issues and I've stocked up on the appropriate parts to correct them.