Views and Panels are really solutions to different problems. I like the both (though Panels 3 isn't really ready for production use yet).

I like to use them together. For example, use a view as a Panels pane.

When you start using Panels you do find yourself using Views differently. At this point I would be wary of sharing Panels config with clients without some good training.

Matt I agree with your comment about looking at Views differently. The great thing about Panels is the context. Let Views run the SQL queries and then use Panels to display them based on context. I have experienced some of bugs discussed on Drupal.org but they seem to be mostly UI related; although there's some strange caching stuff going on I haven't figured out yet. I think it's close to a release candidate. BTW, Views Carousel displays nicely in Panels 3. It even lets you add a CSS class or id right in the UI to easily style it. The reason I ask about client access to Panels is I'm thinking about using it for a Christian school who may need to serve up pages in English and Spanish. I still haven't really sat down and thought through the workflow but it seems like it will work without user access for Panels config. I agree it can be confusing and easy to break. I've broken it a couple times. Thanks for the comments.