Don... Placement and install looks great. If your exterior includes no more gray then I'd say do them in black. That said, it may be worth looking at them for a few days to be sure you are unhappy with gray all together as opposed to unhappy with the shade of gray. The level of contrast is enough to know that standing out may well actually work better than subtle. I love the text in the stripes and they definitely add definition to your hood lines, which I see as an improvement.
BTW, Count me in the OC camp too!