In my Eagle setup I do a similar thing but us the FlexControl in place of a 302R. In my Orion station I keep my paddle and Ten Tec 302R keypad/remote encoder to the right of my keyboard and find that I have little need to access the front panel.
I tend to use my radios as black box devices. If I needed help, N4PY was very reliable via e-mail and the quality of service was excellent. I have used N4PY software in conjunction with K1EL Winkeyer USB, N1MM+, SKCClogger, NaP3 Panadapter, HDSDR, SDRplay and a few other bits of software linked through virtual comports.
I have been very satisfied with the result. Having had a good experience with that software, I was willing tor try his offerings in the summer of 2012 when I added a new Ten Tec Eagle and a used Orion to my station. My first connection with N4PY software was with his program used to operate the Ten Tec RX-320 receiver. A Big thank you to Carl for the work he has done for the ham community, supplying us great tools with incredible support at bargain prices. I have yet to get everything set up with my SDRPLAY rsp2 and SDRConsole OR sdr UNO programs but I am confident that it is all going to come together and be a very awesome station when I am done.
So after just about 4 hours today of playing with it along with the manual open on my 2nd Monitor I sent Carl back the money he had refunded me earlier. The software likes that knob and supports if fully and lets me customize easily to whatever I want it to do. I also updated my station with the remote 302R pod.
Couple of things I was doing wrong before. You will find things the software can do that you would otherwise likely never know. This time I am actually reading the manual! Yes this piece of software does so many things that reading the manual is a requirement and a good thing. However I keep seeing so many solutions to things I would like my Orion and overall station to be able to do that I thought I needed to revisit this option. I felt it was not intuitive and to difficult to operate. Tried the software about 6 mos ago and did not like it.