Because as someone who does ALOT of exploring, I often get the space equivelent of highway hypnosis, call it "Hyperspace Hypnosis", Where one jump blends into another, and another and another, especially when I had to fly 10Kly and 300 jumps. So yeah having the game throw up a visible warning to snap me out of it would be a good thing.
You just admitted the game was so boring it lulled you into a trance state. And you will deny you meant that, but if you'd agree to it, you'd be right. I don't like traveling far and when I have to, like finding a new engineer, I tend to stay around the area. Make one system a sort of temporary base. I find hopping 3 stars undesirable.
But overall, the HUD is empty. Some elements are not empowering. The fuel is a must have, but everything is blant, but that is because it is a hologram. You buy some VR set 2017 and you get better picture quality, but alas! Lore is not FD's strength.
I think the design goal is at work here. They wanted to give a good flight model and engaging combat. And not overload a player with too much information with cryptic abbreviations, like in a real fighter plane. And that is fine, but then why not make the key binds screen a little more international friendly? You need a university degree to get all that right.
But the thing is, exchangeable modular HUD's work best in space sims. A long journey panel replacing the left distance and speed thing, showing your journey visually would be nice. The reason you get entranced is because you don't want to have to look at the Navigation tab and see how mmany jumps you have left.
I am much for having a button to switch between selected information screens. For mining, a small Nav Map for long distance travel. It would be an element that you can set in options screen to automatically rotate the selected screens. Every 7 seconds it will change to the next info screen. It will act as an MFD.
That won't undermine the whole Panel switching thing. Which is in a way a gimmick to promote the notion you are in a boat working information panels.