I went back to a G on top, I just never got away with the D. I did like the single note runs that the D delivers but lost too much of my own style using the three frets up thing that CB talks about. Doing that recovered the "G on top", but couldn't get most of the chords below to back that up. Also I couldn't find a way to recover the sound of 1st and 2nd string raises you get from pedals 5 + 6. I made the change back to a G after doing more work on dobro and taking up the plank; i.e. straight 8 non-pedal.
Doug Jernigan sometimes re-tunes his top string between G and D - honest!

PS - A few months ago I was just too late to buy a Sierra D-11 that would have given me the G
and D on top; although I didn't figure out what to add to the E9th!