I don't necessarily see going smaller as a "down grade", but yes I have moved from about 180, to about 60 gallons.
The return line does come from above. It snakes up and around the wall then down to the tank. This is just because I didn't want to drill a third hole in the tank and I thought it would be a slick way to keep the plumbing mostly out of sight/out of the eye's focus when viewing the tank. (I do plan to replace the white PVC with Grey, just haven't gotten to it as I barely notice it the way it is).
The little frag rack is just because I had more frags than places to put them, and I haven't built a frag tank yet. If I put those on the sand it would be hard to keep track of them and some would likely get buried and lost. There are a bunch of zoas mixed into the rock work, but you can't really see that in the pics due to angle and leathers obstructing much of the view.