I agree, harder to wire up plus your panel is already in use. Mine's a waste of space being a blank panel.
Thanks for the option of fixing that dash panel, but that would be too drastic for me to take on. I never look at the analog gauges (speedo and tach). Kind of a waste for me. I check my speed with the center digital speedo. I think the whole dash design lean towards style over function. I did consider a heads up display but haven't done any research beyond a quick glance.