You can also edit GameData/Configuration/UIWindow/KDL_UIWindows.xml to change the position of those elements, specifically:
<window name="Window_InGameMasterMenu"
dll_name="AIWarExternalCode"
type_name="Arcen.AIW2.External.Window_InGameMasterMenu"
x="0.0"
y="0.0"
>
<element type="Button" x="0.0" y="0.0" width="10" height="3" y_align="Bottom" type_name="bToggleEscapeMenu" />
<element type="Button" x="10.0" y="0.0" width="10" height="3" y_align="Bottom" type_name="bToggleDebugMenu" />
<element type="Button" x="20.0" y="0.0" width="10" height="3" y_align="Bottom" type_name="bToggleTimingMenu" />
<element type="Button" x="30.0" y="0.0" width="10" height="3" y_align="Bottom" type_name="bToggleTechMenu" />
<element type="Button" x="40.0" y="0.0" width="10" height="3" y_align="Bottom" type_name="bToggleCommandsMenu" />
<element type="Button" x="50.0" y="0.0" width="10" height="3" y_align="Bottom" type_name="bTogglePlanetMenu" />
<element type="Button" x="60.0" y="0.0" width="10" height="3" y_align="Bottom" type_name="bToggleObjectivesMenu" />
<element type="Button" x="70.0" y="0.0" width="10" height="3" y_align="Bottom" type_name="bToggleControlGroupsMenu" />
</window>
If you change the y values of each of the elements (not the window itself, the function of that is misleading and may be removed later, we'll see) from 0 to 3, it would probably do what you wanted for that bar. FYI, the units are "percent of screen size along that axis", so y="3" with y_align="Bottom" means "3% from the bottom of the screen" or ~32 pixels on a 1080-high resolution.
The problem is that all the sub menus that open "on top" of that would need to be bumped up too, since it's not relative to each other at this time. There's a few things I can do to make it relative, still debating which is best.
But once the xml setup is more reasonable for making that sort of change without hand-correcting everything, the idea is that if any of you want a different layout... well, you can have it
And whichever one(s) have consensus behind them are likely to be used for the official data in some capacity or another. Though obviously there's still a ton changing about the actual visuals, and even about the actual function, but we're getting there.