Not only does it make that area narrower and hence less room to spread your feet, in some sense (at least from my comfort point of view) it also forced me to sleep somewhat diagonally to make good use of the space I have with the seat.
Other than some claustrophobic feeling during lie down and that closet, I am overall very pleased with the seat. IMO without the mounted closet, it would be the perfect seat. Would still not beat the SQ suite if it were that way, but would definately beat the SQ 77W F seat by a considerable margin IMO.

Later this month I'll have the opportunity to sample the new CX J seat (which has had all kinds of reviews from one extreme to the other) on HKG-LAX (assuming they don't swap away the 74A) and on the same trip/ticket will also have the opportunity to sample the new BA CW seat SYD-BKK (which is a guarantee according to the folks on the BA folks since all of BA's 744 have been retrofitted with the new seat. So by then I will be able to compare SQ, CX, and BA's new business class product.