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Okay, I have poured over links pro and con. Far from concluding the fossils are fakes, I find even more credible the assertion that this specimen is indeed an example of a transitional.

I found these reasons particularly compelling fro trusting the fossils in evidence:

Electron microscope pictures show fossilized bacteria attached to the feather area. No one in the nineteenth century could have detected these, much less faked them: they are pretty well impossible to fake today.

All of the fossils (specimens owned by a German family) were found when flat pieces of rock were split in half lengthwise. So, each fossil has an upper half, and a lower half. The whole rockbed fractured long ago, and the hairline fissures filled with a white mineral. These fissures extend right through the fossil bones and through the feather area, and they match up perfectly on the two half-slabs. No forger could fake the match, and since some of the fissures only show up under ultraviolet light, no nineteenth century forger would have known they were there.

Thanks for pointing me to the evidence. It really helps to get opposing assertions, but this time the record is supported by detail impossible to fake and or completely reasonable explanation for oddities found in the specimens.