Painting the vinyl dash pad is the way to go. Tweed is ugly and harsh, avoid it if you can.
I have painted 3 dash pads for my truck (changed colors three times now) It works fine as long as you do it right.
It does not crack, chip, or peel (easily, it will scratch off of side panels, but the dash pad holds up nicely as long as you dont let your passenger put their feet on it!)
You want to find a place that sells interior stuff, vinyl, trim, adhesives, etc. They usually carry the vinyl paint. The key is the preperation. there is this stuff called "vinyl prep". after you clean everything you use the vinyl prep, it makes the plastic sticky and then the paint sticks great.
I have 7 light coats of "mocha" on my dash pad. It looks better then factory (since the factory was orange! Yuk!) and has been there for a year, still looks perfect. I clean it with water.
I did however also attempt to paint the intire interior of my truck, all the plastic side panels, everything. It worked great, however the paint would scratch off in the cargo area if I had something banging around back there, and also next to the pass seat where people were squeezing into the back (remember 2 door BII). So eventually I found a 90 BII that had a mocha interior, I bought the whole thing so now the only piece painted is the dashpad and the trim below it.
All in all it looks great and totally custom....
I do have to re-paint my arm rest pads about every two years, I could order new ones from Ford but why? The originals (from the 90 BII) were faded bad, the paint made them match perfect and it holds up rather well!
I've looked into painting my dash parts many times, but I was told the paint wouldn't stick and/or it would crack/peel VERY easily. Replacement panels would be like $500 if I screwed them up, so I'm afraid of the financial risk invovled if I mess up. 
