I have few gauges in both of my cars. In my ve car they are on the pillar which makes quick reference easy. I have also driven the car 600+ miles with the laptop plugged in to make sure everything was ok. Its much easier to have the gauges to look at for a quick reference to make sure things are running fine. I do agree it can be very dangerous to stare at gauges and drive depending on their location. this is why I only set my boost on a dyno. If you have ever driven a fast car and tried to set the boost at the same time you will no how quickly something can go very wrong.
I run a oil temp and oil pressure among others and my oil temp usually never gets above 200ish and that is just daily beating. Even when I was tuning my ecu doing 3rd gear pulls it still never went past 210.