No shit it was a panic buy. We didn't plan out the fact that the dickless Spaniard would turn in a transfer request 3 days before the close of the window. No one plans for that. Captain Obvious.
I'm not a fan of Carroll, but I can't help but thing any last minute replacement would have cost us a fortune with clubs knowing that we were about to be paid 50 million for Torres. Carroll's probably worth 17 - 18 million at the most, the rest was the price of last minute business and the "English tax". The way I see it... "it is what it is".
I would imagine that if we had gone for someone like Benzema the price would have been much higher. The owners realize we can't afford to just write the season off and the purchase, though expensive, shows intent to rebuild the squad. With the sale of Torres and Babel we only had a net spend of 2 million pounds. Which is our first net spend in a long time.
As for "bringing in more attackers", we have Suarez, Carroll, Kuyt, N'Gog, Pacheco plus some promising youth in the academy so I doubt we'll be making a major acquisition in the striker position any time soon. We're more likely to invest in wide players, a center back, and a left back in the future.
There's always a risk when delving into the transfer market.