That idea actually did occur to me, the backplane could be recessed up to 1.5" if I cut away part of the metal chassis. For some reason I had thought it would weaken the chassis too much, but I just went back and measured it and it looks like even if I cut it, there would be plenty of metal holding it together so I'm not sure what I was thinking. Might be worth doing if I don't care about reversibility. After all, if I'm going to cut up the plastic bucket, why not cut up the metal chassis too? It'd only need to be done once anyway.
That tray drive will look really amazing if it matches the arc of the front and is completely flush when shut. Just out of curiosity, where did you find a drive with such a thin tray?
I'm going to skip the optical drive though, I really have zero use for one and can't imagine ever needing one. I could use front USB though, and they will fit the 3.5" slot.
I will be using an AU Optronics 8.4" SVGA LCD (800x600) with resistive touchscreen. I've made a custom CRT-shaped bezel out of ABS plastic. Here are pics of it in its current form still with protective plastic on the LCD itself. I'm hoping it will look better once I have it complete as the screen is matte and I will also paint the bezel a satin or flat black to match the matte screen. It should hopefully make the flatness of the LCD look less obvious. I would have gone for the acrylic CRT-shaped bubble lens in front of it except I want to use the touchscreen (it works really nicely for being resistive).
