I bought the rack versions of both the 861 and the 800 and mounted them succesfully in my Middle Atlantic 19" rack.

Now I want to prepare them to be connected to a Crestron system (over RS-232). A few questions pop to my mind:

1-Should I connect both the 861 and the 800 to the Crestron system or can I connect only one of them and then have the commands send through Meridian Comms to the second unit?

2-How useful is the frontal RS-232 connector when you realise that the connector on the back should be permanently connected to the Crestron system? Does this mean that I have to slide out the rack whenever there is an upgrade I want to install and then unplug the RS-232 connector on the back (that is connected to the Crestron system) to replace it with the RS-232 cable that goes to the pc?

I noticed that M delivers a nice front cover (when you order a rack version of the 861/800) that can be mounted to hide the front connectors from view. However, whenever you want to use the front connections, you need a screwdriver to get acces to those connectors. Couldn't M provide a flip-open kind of panel as on high-endish AV-receivers?