Well, I've mustered up some courage and a few more references and decided to take the plunge with this kit. In addition to all of the helpful references linked above and those sent by Wayne and Geo, I got myself a copy of the Classic Warship Publications Warship Pictorial #40 that has some excellent detail shots of Princeton's sister ship, the USS Independence.
I'm only on the first step of the build and have already encountered a couple of mishaps. After the first photo below was taken, I dropped the stack with all the detail parts on it and, of course, the PE bracing and two other tiny parts broke of onto my concrete floor and I searched successfully and reassembled everything to take the second pic.
Then, I pinged one of the stack shrouds somewhere into a distant corner of my work area but managed to find that as well so, before I go much further, I think I will rearrange my work area and cover some catch areas to minimze the chance of losing one or more of the 1300 plus remaining bits. Anyway, here's the start, and yes, I'll remember to put my white balance back to tungsten light for the next round:
This build will likely be an off-and-on affair as I may want to get back to working with parts bigger than my finger nail clippings after a while but, in the meantime, hopefully I'll get a bit of progress done on this project before I get to that point.
Thanks for your patience everyone and fire me any constructive criticism along the way.