The cable management is very good, Bell'O makes nice stuff. The cutouts in the cable race are big and are edged with plastic rings so you can't scrape your hands or your cable insulation. There are cutouts on both sides of the race, I try to keep power and digital cables tied on one side and analog signals on the opposite side. You can't see the cables unless you go almost behind the rack.
You nailed the one issue, if it's really an issue. The bottom of the rack doesn't have the cable race, it's wide open. However, the cable race would just be in the way. If you're like me, you need one or two shelves with a bunch of space to deal with a large number of cables: receiver or preamp and amplifier. I tried putting my receiver on the first shelf above the wood, but it wouldn't work because there's not enough room in the back to deal with all the cables to/from the receiver without having the receiver sitting right at the front edge of the rack. Right now the receiver cables are just dangling since I've been working on the room, but normally I have them tied together so all you can see is two big bundles straight down in the back. When I'm done mucking, I'll probably put them in loom or expandable nylon mesh sleeving (like the kind you might find on a PC power supply). I'm also considering just putting a couple of pieces of hardwood on the back there. The Sunfire receiver generates so litle heat that enclosing the back of the rack is a non-issue.
I don't know if I'd worry about the tower becoming the dominating feature of the room. These particular Bell'O units work pretty well just as display cases, and they're far from ugly. If you've got enough gear to actually fill one, whatever rack you use is bound to be a dominating piece in the room. :-) I only mentioned the size because there was a big difference between your smallest choice and largest choice. In my case, the wife acceptance factor was better with the Bell'O 2052's than anything else I looked at, probably due to the wood bases.
As for my components being down low... that's mostly because we have a rambunctious golden retriever. Small, light items need to be kept out of his reach, so they wound up high and the A/V items (in which he has no interest) wound up low. :-)
