Took another look at ncDataText. It's probably the one I'm going to go with.
/sigh... time to actually learn lua and not just coast on the basics.
I can deduce some things from the default displays of the addon, but I don;t know how to retrieve character stats.
If anyone can point me in the right direction, I'll donate a cookie to science in their name.
spellpower
attack power
crit
haste
armor
dodge
parry
and/or block
::EDIT::
Note to self - Follow the instructions of the WoWI Comic before posting. Just discovered
http://www.wowwiki.com/World_of_Warcraft_API
It helps a lot.
Now to main question is how to get the text to display on top of my panels. The panels are all set to Background, but the text still doesn't display on top.