For now I'm going to put feet on what you see as the machine will either be on the floor or a bench somewhere. Once it's in it's final home on a proper frame there will be "something better".

I agree having the stepper on the front of the Z-axis isn't ideal but I don't see it being enough of a problem for me. I moved it from the back plate to the front plate because I had to get power and water to the spindle anyway. Having the stepper on the back plate made getting the cables over more difficult so the front plate seemed like a better choice. As I see it there are a couple of other advantages as well, it's allowed me to lift the z-axis screw up away from the chips a bit and the weight of the stepper will act as a pre-load on that axis.