Your best bet is to mount them pointing towards you. If your pointing them towards anything else its going to diffuse the sound and ruin it. The best thing to do,IMO, is mount them somewhere facing you. Your kick panel looks like a good candidate. Keep an open mind and thing a few steps ahead at all times.
There's more to life than full tilt. If a speaker is tuned well it should never hurt. I have heard some unbelievably loud setups that i can thoroughly enjoy at extreme levels. Imagine being front row at a huge concert, but without the headache from the terrible signal.