I eventually tried it the way I described it (that is, the Mental-Motion-Channel mounted top-to-bottom in a 9U rack, not beside each other). To my surprise the beautiful patterns make an even more significant whole and the ins and outs is both more easily available and readable. I’ll gather the audio outs into a small mixer module. The channel touchplates are not as immediate as before but the rest really opens up. I’ll try this for a while and see what it brings to the table …