I dont think its going to be that hard to read the gauges mounted down there. Back in the day most guys with muscle cars had 3 gauge panels mounted under the dash. I dont constantly monitor the gauges in my vehicles when I drive. A glance every now and then. If I need to do constantly watch those gauges I think Ive done something wrong.
Sure, I started out the same way too. Until I realized just how little use those gauges were... at one time my Buick had more gauges than the cockpit of a 747. Then it had none - everything went through the datalogger. I figured out that if something had failed it was too late to look at a gauge and do something about it. The datalogger would provide real information, in realtime, and could be used to determine trends over time.
Being this for my Regal which is going to be just a cruiser it is more about having the information available at a glance versus having an idiot light and installs without modification to the original dash.
In my Monte all my critical information gauges are in my line of sight where they should be.
No argument on the GP dash having the best factory lay out for gauges.
I am not poo-pooing on gauges, I love gauges - it was a guilty pleasure stuffing the dash of the Lemans with SpeedHut stuff. However, in my experience, if the gauge is below the centreline of the steering wheel it provides no benefit while racing. Our TBSS has two gauges, boost on the column and a WB02 in the pod to the right of the ignition switch - well within my peripheral vision.
The MCSS was set up like this:
Plus, there was a shift light in the old SES slot.