v10.0.2 how can I leave spaces in record view

Good morning,

We are finally catching up on v10 upgrade in our OnSite deployment of Sugar PRO. As you may know, for OnSite the latest version is 10.0.2

For years all our record views have been customized to use more than 2 columns, the number of columns is often different per panel and we make extensive use of the span property to align things in a pleasing and logical manner.

We have also used blank arrays in the record.php, sometimes with just a span property, to leave blank spaces where needed. This is different from increasing the span of a field which actually increases the size of the field itself and stretches the input box. 

For example we may have a panel with 4 columns and want only two fields on the first row, two blanks, then four fields on the following rows.

Field 1.1 Field 1.2
Field 2.1 Field 2.2 Field 2.3 Field 2.4

the blanks would simply be 2=> array(), 3=>array() in the record.php specification, or maybe make use of spans: 2=>array('span'=>6) to achieve the desired alignment.

Again, I don't really want to extend the span for Field 1.2

After the upgrade to v10 those blank entries are ignored, and the record view gets realigned, and frankly quite messy, especially for complex views.

The one above, for example, is now rendered as:

Field 1.1 Field 1.2 Filed 2.1 Field 2.2
Field 2.3 Field 2.4

I will bite the bullet and edit all record views in the 63 modules we use if I have to, but I can't find a solution to this problem... each "slot" in the record view appears to need a specification for a name, but if I give it one, even a blank one, it will add an input field in that blank area and that's just not acceptable.

Before I reinvent the wheel.... has anyone run into this problem and found a good solution? 

I am hoping I'm just missing a trivial solution...

Thanks,

FrancescaS