My thoughts, and I know just enough about VW's to be dangerous, you'd be going from hidden cylinders by the dog house to hidden by pretty big fans. If Rex's calculations are correct and I trust them, 10 HP of fans is a fairly large fan, not to mentions the additional power requirements to drive them, even short term.
I gotta admit, I like the "out of the box thinking" and really like the idea of sprucing up the look of the VW engine with uncovering and polishing the cylinders.
I don't thinks you will ever find a "better design" than what the germans did, the VW is tried and true, but you might come across a design that works for those low speed times and free the engine from the dog house ...