Thanks for all the kind words everyone. Jumping ahead a bit, the next steps involved careful mating of the wings to the fuselage. Can't emphasize enough the need to do constant trial fits with this ICM kit as I once again I found plenty of interferences between the wing plastic and various bits of the cockpit bulkheads and floor, all of which had to be corrected by cutting the offending parts off. Once that was done, it was then a matter of shaving material off the wing roots so that the wings uppers would not pry apart to create a flat dihedral. After all that, I finally glued the wings to the fuselage and found the need to fill numerous gaps as can be seen in the next two pics.
Gluing of the wings was done sequentially with Tamiya Extra Thin cement. I would glue small sections at a time, allowing the cement to fully set before manipulating the parts to mate up another seam and gluing those. Slow progress but in the end, I got the dihedral I wanted and minimized the gaps which, nevertheless, were still substantial. The end result, seen below, shows how it looks today with the plastic card in the gaps roughly cut away and the elevators installed. Note that I deflected the elevators after cutting the horn balances along the break lines.
The carb intake went on last and the fit was not too bad. This piece came in two halves extending from the spinner backplate to the back of the intake housing. I first glued just the intake housing halves, leaving the forwrad seam open to allow for adjustment. Then this assembly was inserted into the triangular opening in the wing and glued. Them the edges were mated to the cowl to minimize the stop between the cowl and intake. Finally, once that was set, the forward seam was pinched and glued and this all closed up nicely.
None of these parts have benefited from any filling, smoothing, and sanding as yet but this will be the next step - my least favourite part of any build. Thanks for looking in once again.