Unsubstantiated claims that could be resolved through a touch of experimental research notwithstanding, I worry about the visibility cost of those HUD details. If you're playing at a 320x2?0 resolution, then the screen is only ten tiles wide, and you're effectively reducing that by 20%. What if you put the keys and such at the bottom of the screen, between the lives and ammo, and instead of 32 pixels high they were only 20 or so?