Unfortunately i cannot help you decide whether to cut your seating in half or not but
In reply to:
But that would make my listening area(seat) only 7-1/2 or 8 feet away from the speakers and I may not get that great a soundstage from so close (as Alan has pointed out).
Is anybody using the M60's at such a close range for 2-channel stereo ?
I do have a smallish sized room right now for my audio equipment and i sit about 8 feet away from my M60s. I can form a decent soundstage but its width is rather limited such that moving a couple of feet in either direction to the left or right removes the stereo image enough to distinguish right and left speakers. If i had even 2 more feet to move our couch backwards, it would help to widen that soundstage to fit the entire width of our couch which is obviously more preferable when there is more than one person watching/listening to the system.
Eight feet is certainly possible but this is most likely the limitation you will run into when setting up the speakers.
