Scottes: you were right, EXIFutils (freeware version) from www.hugsan.com
does it beautifully, and what's more, it comes with exemplary manuals. It wasn't enough to delete the model field alone, but I just deleted all meta data for PhotoStitch to allow me to set my own preference of focal length.
I copied all jpegs in a separate folder "test" and added a batchfile "meta_ex.bat", containing a separate command line each "exifedit /e a [file name].jpg". Then I went into Start/cmd/; volume:; cd test; meta_ex.bat; - and all was well (forget some superfluous backup files).
kb244: with the banana effect I mean slight variations along the upper and lower border of the stitch (one row of 13 shots) - obviously from minor misalignment on shooting. I don't really understand yet what the focal length in theory implies, but in PhotoStitch changing this alters the two borders slightly and moves missing areas to where the cloning is easier regarding image content.
Thanks for your help! 