I thank those of you who left me with some advice. I've had three guys out to look at the pool. Consensus is that this stainless steel is a seperate piece as you can feel the two rows of hardware on either side of the panel through the liner. So, the plan is, dependent on availability, replace the panel, put in a new liner, install a maindrain, relevel the sand base and possibly put a Happy pad down, have water trucked in to save our well, and hopefully enjoy the summer. If availability of the panel is weeks to months, then we are going to try to open the pool and deal with this as a cosmetic issue for now and then deal with the above at the end of the season. Of course we won't know what's in store leak-wise until we get water above the skimmer line if we have to go that route.
We also went ahead and bought a new Waterway 22" sand filter with a 2spd. 1hp pump. We are going to place that in a new location, about 14' linear feet from the pool and hard plumb that in ourselves. Our goal with this is to reduce pump noise while floating on a quiet sunny day.
We haven't hired anyone yet or started plumbing so if you have any advice to offer, I'm open!!
Anyway, this forum is awesome! I have learned so much from everyone! Thank you.