A quick cheat that holds for a year or so: shoe polish! I did that worked out fine. Needs doing again, but super easy.
I wouldn't go without them. Arches eat up a lot of damage. On my old jeep they ate up about a third of the (extensive) damage. On the rover they've had a couple light hits that would suck on raw metal.

 

Heat and pulling it off with my fingers mostly. Used goo gone, alcohol to remove the small amount of adhesive left. Takes a lot of time and elbow grease.

 

I found Kevlar at work. It does pretty good. I did the fenders and rockers just all the way across the bottom

 

That looks good compared to my gray and black flares.
Where and what brand kevlar did you use? Sorry sound like a DumbA but what are the rockers?

 

took mine off as soon as got it

 

Good looking truck bro. I like the roof rack.