Ok, I use 1920 x 1080 now on a 15.6" notebook. :hmm:
Well, the big plan is to develop a core library that assists developing historic spacecraft and that works equally well with generic cockpit view, Panel2D and VC mode. But thats currently just a concept for designing the respective interfaces in the library, nothing that already works out.
For example, a switch exists in multiple ways in the concept:
first as simulation entity in the backend of the vessel. It is simulated, changes its electrical properties during the timestep if needed and can be manipulated by AI crew members.
Then, you have user interface classes connecting mouse and display to the simulation entity.
As final layer, you have visualization details, which do the actual painting and which must not be hard coded in the DLL, but can be defined as external file (for example XML)
To do the rendering of the lights in the VC, I would for example just use one large texture for all lights, and shift the V coordinates of the light mesh group depending on light state. Even with a AGP bus, this is still much faster than the currently preferred Bitblit.