Can Panda3D be used to create a professional-quality game?

Yes, I very much believe so.

I take it from your mention of appearance that graphics are a major concern for you in determining whether a game is of “professional quality”, so take a look at these threads in the “Showcase” sub-forum:
Terrain rendering
Deferred rendering
Now, in all fairness, those involved a fair bit of work on the part of the developer in question, I believe, but were still made in Panda to the best of my knowledge.

(I think that there have been a few games released commercially that were made using Panda, but aside from Signal Ops (which has a thread in the “Showcase” sub-forum), I’m having trouble finding independant verification.)