Just a thought... partly because I read about the slowness of penguin's (I think it was his) OpenGL port in 2D, and partly because of the fact the I have Elsa 3D glasses, and the depth positioning of the HUD in FS2 is crap.
Basically, the idea would be to have the existing 2D HUD display/render not as 2D objects, but as textures on a 3D plane. A true 3D radar map would then be possible, I'd think.
I also believe that the code for something like this already exists, because the 3D display of a targeted ship in the lower-left corner is, well, 3D!
It's not a very important change to make, of course, but it just may be something that would actually make things easier in the long run, as well as open up new doors of possibilities.
Any thoughts?