Burgs,
I am hesitant to post this because of the risk of getting flamed. I've been road racing a long time now, so I'm just going by experience on the track as well as the street.
Move the axle so that you can get the body down over the wheels. If the axle is off less than 1", that's actually pretty close. Again, from experience, I've found the a live axle moves around considerably more than 1" when on the road with body lean and bumps and all. A live axle is not high tech, but works quite well when set up correctly.
Try to get the panhard bar as close to horizontal as possible when the car is sitting on the ground. An sloped panhard bar makes for evil feelings in corners, especially when they are short. I would direct my efforts at relocating the panhard mountings to get the longest, most horizontal bar possible. The worst feeling is having the rear of the car wiggling around over bumps and in corners because the panhard bar arc is moving the rear end laterally.
If it were my car, I'd be using the waning good weather driving the car, not laying under it
.
JMHO