The solution was a combination of a bunch of things and still a little bit in the works.

One bank of 8 switches is being relocated to one of the closets in the Master Bedroom.  This is going to require conduit up through and across the roof.  In this area this can be done with moderate expense.

One bank has been shrunk by removing two dimmers for half-hots and using lamp dimmer modules at the lamps and then by removing three dimmers that are controlling MLV lighting.  The transformers for these lights are going in a weatherproof enclosure on the roof. so the dimmers will be located up there too.  The electrician is working to find a Nema style enclosure that is PVC so RA2 can get signal and also provide some ventilation for the transformers and dimmers.  This was a 7 gang box and by using a hybrid dimmer and the changes above has been shrunk to 2 gang.

The main entry also had a 7 gang box that had some 3,4,& 5-way switching for hall lights, exterior lights, pool lights, landscape lights and lights at the garage and cabana.  The electrician found a junction in the garage that fed the lights for pool, landscape, garage and cabana which where just extended up to the house.  We'll move the dimmer & relay switches for these loads down to the garage allowing us to shrink this bank of switches down to 3 gang.

There were a few other locations with 3-4 gang switches that we fine tuned by using hybrid keypads and removing remote switches for 3&4-way switching that will just be controlled by keypad.  This let us shrink some of these boxes by 1-2 gang to help clean things up.

In the end it looks like we don't have to fool around with switches at outlet height and I feel pretty good about the solutions except for the 3 dimmer switches that will be up on the roof... still not sure how that will play out.