The DMD placement is all wrong IMO... Williams got it right with CV. It should be at the back of the PF so you can keep an eye on your score and play at the sametime. To me, CV is pretty much designed perfectly. The BG is there just to enhance the artwork of the whole machine and the DMD is player interactive due to its placement.
So why do we need a DMD?..Well we don't to be honest.. its real purpose is to display your score, the animations are a bonus but as most people seem to be saying they don't watch them then its really a waste of time and code etc. Video modes I find quite irritating... have never liked these.
The problem seems to lie in the fact that no one seems to know what to do with the backbox.... JJP made it into one huge screen which no one likes. Stern have stayed on the line of late 80's games and dared not try to alter the recipe.
Heighway have retained the backbox which inside houses nothing other than some cheap arse LED stick down strip...

Technology gets smaller but pinball machines get bigger... theres an awful lot of empty real estate inside a Stern backbox. SAM, the size of a mobile phone needs a lot of elbow room!

My take would be to do away with the backbox and have it shaped like a 30's pin where the backglass is the animated DMD/LCD screen. Its placement is right in front of game play so the player knows whats going on at all times.. perfect!

A modern pinball is a small box plonked on top of a large box. This came about to house the mechanics needed to run the machine.. those have gone, so no need for the large plinth.
A 30's pin was an all in one design that flowed.. the reason for its demise ive already explained. The reason doesn't exist anymore.