Excellent John! Please post pix when you can, although I know full well how hard it can be to get around to it.
I don't know why so few people seem to understand how thrilling drums can sound with one 251 or C12 or the like right in front of the kit. Maybe they don't have access to great microphones, or maybe their drummers suck, or maybe they are insecure.
When you walk into the tracking room and the drummer is playing, doesn't it sound powerful and exciting? If not, why not? When it does so, are you putting your ears, one at a time, right down an inch in front of heads? Or are you taking in the full glory of the sound as it emanates from the kit as a whole, reverberates from the wood and glass, and mixes itself into one big instrument? If the latter, why not capture that?
Of course, often drummers themselves want hundreds of microphones on their precious splashes, chinas, 4"- 6"- 8"- 10" baby toms, etc. In our present case, when we recently had a writing and demo session, I tracked with just the two microphones, and Todd immediately, upon the first playback, fully got it. In fact, he was excited by the prospect of HIM being the balancer of the bombastics.
I agree that often a bass drum can and does sound great mic'd from outside, in fact even from the front batter side. In this case, I found my best spot inside, mounted on the pad-stand.
Best regards.