Wow, thanks for the compliment of basing your idea on mine! I wish my website was more complete to helo you more.... one of these days (I do a tiny bit almot every day, but onlyhave time for a tiny bit

). As for your panels, I really think you are the only one that can answer what you should have based on your game likes/dislikes...
As you can tell from my site I have:
#1 - a Defender "clone" panel. Works for Defende/Stargate (added the Stargate Inviso button). That layout is also very close to Asteroids, so I use it for that, asteroids deluxe... I also stuck a spinner in the middle (empty space, might as well stick a spinner there) - for Arkanoid, all the other spinner games.
#2 - a 1 player panel with an 8 way and a 4 way
#3 - a 2 player panel with a trackball in the middle. I have to say, mostly because I have some young kids who like to play the arcade - this panel gets most ofthe play. My two sons like to play the games where both the 1 and 2 players play at the same time (endless plane/spaceship shoot 'em up type games, sports games, Mortal Combat type fighter games)... A lot of times if I just plan on playing for 20 minutes I'll just leave it on that panel and play 1 player games with it, instead of switching to panel #2 and then back to panel #3 (I'll usually leave it on #3 so they can play after school).
As FractalWalk suggested, you may want to have 1 panel dedicated to be a "modular" type panel, so you can stick on a steering wheel, star wars yoke, etc... I am actually about to start a new Mame machine, a sitdown driving machine with a steering wheel(s) and a yoke...
Listen, if you need any help with the design, send me an email - I'd love to help.