JonW,
I have made a couple like that. In each case I steam bent the levers right at the lever fades. I'm not so sure that the lever tips were very far ahead of the grip though. Personaly I did not see enough of a performance difference to make the work worthwhile.
With the stiff levers, I believe that you are better served to make the levers as thin as possible (without bending) instead of angling them forword. You'll get better performance from the thin levers.
The other thing is that with the levers forward, you will increase the brace height and shorten the power stroke. That is my take on it since I built those two, and while they looked cool, the straight ones shot better. Straight is all I make now.
Hope that answers your question.
rich