Good stuff,
John, and a big welcome to a fellow Buckeye!
Like the others here have said, I'd also say to move the heads further up - without conclusive testing data, it's hard to say, one way or the other, but looking at your diagram above, it does seem a bit far of a reach to cover the entire headlamp units....and I would imagine that your centerline, as you move further "up" the vertical axis, would also show weaknesses.
I'd say that yellow would be ideal, particularly as you should also pay good attention to the front plate - but without some measurements as you've done, and without true testing, it's hard to tell whether or not the pink setup might actually be better.
In terms of the rear, I feel your pain - indeed, my vehicle is configured similarly, in terms of the rear plate illumination, and I also could not put the rear head (my ZR3) above the plate.
In residing "under" the plate, you now have two considerations:
(1) The jammer head is less effective - they're now so low that they're effectively only, well, effective
for direct-plate shots, in terms of protection. Don't carry any illusions in this respect, my fellow Escort user and Buckeye - particularly for vehicles of your size, and with such a rear hardpoint profile, rear jamming is *not* something to be optimistic about. I see my rear ZR3 head as a receiver only - with the primary benefit being that it will alert me to the direction of the incoming LIDAR threat.
(2) Regardless of performance concerns, make sure that the head is properly leveled - it looks from your picture that there's a bit of incline to the plate-mount plane (this is true on my car), so you may need to bend the bracket a bit (or shim), to achieve good placement/aim.
If you do bring the head up and over the plate, aftermarket lighting solutions (LED strips, LED-impregnated bolts, etc.) can allow you to work around the illumination issue (be sure to double-check that the aftermarket solutions do offer enough light, of the correct "color," to the plate, too), and if you get creative with some pieces of plastic or metal, you can also effect - if there's sufficient space - an "above the plate" mounting by "extending" the factory rear jammer head's bracket, and fitting the bracket *behind* the plate, allowing only the jammer head to drape over the rear plate.