I did a similar thing (but kinda reversed) on my Tamiya F-117 a while back. I actually built up the radar screens to stand out a little bit from the rest of the model. I used many of the same techniques you describe here (at least I think I did what you're describing!) I see no reason why it wouldn't be possible. The one thing I can think of to watch out for is that you'll need to thin the panel quite a bit for it to appear to scale. With the thickness taken down so far, it might be pretty easy to damage the panel beyond repair.
Have you got any options of adding PE details or perhaps scratch building some bezels from cut up old ink tubes of ball point pens?
You can find a bit of info on the panel I did for the F-117 here (towards the end of the thread I think):
http://www.finescale.com/fsm/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=16899
Photos have been posted towards the top, and then the description and build technique for the panel is found further down.
Brian~
"I may not fly with the eagles.....but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines!"