Thanks for the insight - there's clearly been a lot of attention paid to the details. However, I have to say that I prefer the cleaner, more contrasty original version. The red on near-black-with-a-bit-of-shadow needle of the final version just doesn't look crisp.

Also, where in the original the tip of the needle follows the arc of the scale, in the final version it doesn't, by quite a margin. At the two extremes, the needle falls below the scale and in the middle it's in danger of 'poking' the numbers above the scale.

To be brutally honest, I prefer the aesthetics of the original, in every aspect. The final version has raised features that don't really deserve to be, and the one feature (the meter itself) that really warrants the illusion of depth below the front panel, only has it very marginally. To sum it up in a single phrase, I think I'd say the original is the more coherent design.