They were painted from the factory, but finding something to stick to stainless and have nice clean edges is going to be tough if not impossible
I've also used the tomato red tape on all my GSs and you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference from paint unless you got right down and felt it. Even then, hard to tell.
I painted my rocker moldings using International (tractor) red paint back in 2002 and they still look great.