ya know, funny thing. I have had 4 cases. I was scared witless to cut into them for fear of "ruining" them. As I was about to throw away the 3rd case, I cut the livin tar out of it and I liked it more in that last month than I did the entire time. Now currently, have popped 8 rivets, placed 4 holes and added places to rewire my case. I will never, protect my case from "evil dremel again!".
But not, that your case doesn't have merit. The coolest thing is... looks. Frankly, someone would never know you were watercooling unless you told em. This way they see the very nice looking setup when they come in the room. Frankly I think its brilliant. The only way I could do that would be to give up going to lan parties.. and thats not happening.
What pump is that? I looked for more pics in the sig, but couldn't see it. Very pleased to see people "thinking outside the box" (drumroll... tophat).
If I may extrapolate on your dream for a minute. I was thinking.. if you bought one of those large transmission coolers and mounted them on the side of your desk and cut a hole just smaller than the exterior walls, you could mount it, facing in our out.. either one. Your desk would have a chrome appearance, and look really cool! Just a way to add the radiator to the art like motif.
It would keep the rad off the floor anyway.