I ordered my 16" LED strips off of ebay from China also. The shipping was quite a bit faster than I expected. I planned to see them in a month, got them in about two weeks. I have a two piece hull so my LED's will just be under the gunnel rod holders. If I had a 3 piece like yours I would definitely run them all of the way around.
I do not know about the refraction, the epoxy I have found for the project is "crystal clear" so I guess it would be negligible.
Scarab Chris on THT sells underwater lights at a pretty reasonable price but it is still more than I want to spend on them and I feel I can make a better bezel than he offers.
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