John,
Indeed - and I've been to Donauworth where the -53s are looked after by Airbus. If the Germans feel that they need to show their Euro credentials, then -47 remains the better option. There's a production line already in Italy or Airbus could build them under licence, and there's already European options on cockpits, DAS/ASE, avionics and EO/IR turrets they can choose - and all of the above not chock-full of ITAR! -53K will be eye-wateringly expensive, even more so once the FMS surcharge is applied (the price is calculated on the block price the US military pay plus 5-7% typically for "overheads"). Any changes to the design to accommodate more European content will just make the bill even higher as components have to be re-qualified / re-certified, and then, of course, you're dealing with a "new" configuration which may fall outside the FMS bulk-buy deal.