That's right Larry, I have drains in the basement and simply open valves to change out water. It's pretty easy. Also keeps most of the heaters and stuff out of the tank. The trickle filter portion of my setup would fit under the stand if you chose to go that way, including the auto top-off. You could run a much smaller return pump as well.
Last night I thought about one other thing you should consider. The inner baffles of the overflow boxes set the water level in the tank. If you remove the overflows your standpipes would set the level somewhere within the downturned elbow, higher or lower based on the size of your pump i guess. This would almost definitely place the top of your standpipe above the tank top. It looks to me like it would still fit in your canopy, just make sure you measure...
I'll be interested to see what you decide re: the background, as I've spent hours daydreaming about goofy ideas I could use to incorporate these overflows into some sort of DIY tree trunks or rocks.