Offshoreonly.com - Good material for dash/IP panels?

I'm looking at re-doing the dash on my '96 290 and have a couple of questions.

First, what material would be good for the actual panels? I'm not sure what they are made of right now. I'm thinking of painting the panels, so the material would need to take paint/powercoating well. Also, there are 4 main panels, two for gauges and rocker switches, and two glove box lids, so I'd have to be able to mount the door hardware on the glove box side.

Second, the graphics are predominately red (see pic) with a splash of purple and green. We're thinking the green may go away altogether, so I'm thinking of two options:

1. Paint the panels white (maybe with a red/purple stripe) and use white-face gauges with red bezels.

2. Paint the panels red, use chrome bezels and carbon fiber or black faced gauges. This has the advantage of integrating the GPS a bit better (it's black).

Both options will see a red/black/chrome Dino wheel from Trick Marine. I can't see spending another $2K for new billet throttles/shifters, so I'm thinking of either getting the existing Merc/Kiek numbers chromed or replacing them with a new set of either red or chrome Zero Effort sticks (Man, do those Livorsi numbers look gooooood, but $1800.00+ is too much for this old boat)

Third, here's my first stab at laying out the gauges. Obviously not to scale - what do you think? What would you add and/or do differently?

Thanks!