On Tue, 14 Jan 2014 23:57:25 -0500, Tony Matt wrote:

These/some Panasonic
cordless handsets display a "Charge for 7 hours" message (and a single
bar on the battery gauge) whenever batteries are installed, regardless
of the state-of-charge.

Thanks for confirming.

It took me a while (mostly at Jeff's insistance) to test the batteries,
which, turned out (surprisingly) to be fine, even though the phone
said they needed charging, right after the phone said they were fine.

Go figure.
SO far, it has worked out ok, so, I think the re-registration process
was what fixed it (I think).