When doing a panel upgrade (which in any airplane is inevitable) as I am doing now, it sure is nice to just pull out the panel and not have to disconnect and un-install every control that is mounted in the instrument panel.
If you do a fit check in the cockpit, you will find that removing the drop down portion of the panel will have no improvement in leg room.
I will accept the extra hour of time it will cost me to disconnect and reconnect those cables in the event of a panel rebuild in order to have it look just the way I want.
loosen one bolt at throttle, two cable nuts at sump, one nut at panel and 4 screws at FW eye. I can have my throttle cable out in 5 min. if the cowl is off..........
Nor am I....
I have done it a few times
on a few different RV's
What ever work being done is times 3 different controls
And we all know that 5 minutes is a major exaggeration
Mount the cables in a subpanel and inset it. Drop the small panel and cables in a clump and remove the instument panel without disturbing any rigging. Maybe you can rip a cable loose in five minutes (uncowled). You ain't gonna rig one back up in five.