We are all facing God, priest and people, in either form.  The important part is Communion, where we experience God.  God is not in the crucifix above or behind the Altar, it is in the Eucharist.  Us old timers still genuflect out of habit at the consecrated hosts, but the reality is that it is only by faith that the host in the tabernacle or monstrance is a way to experience Christ. In fact, the only such experience is by reception.  Anything else is belief and a bit of superstition, which white Europeans seem to still be really good at.  Trads tend to conflate grace with magic, which comes close to idolatry.  That is why patients in a coma are no longer given absolution and rarely anointing. The same superstition is why papal pronouncements which run counter to reason in moral arguments are seen as superior to actually conforming to both reason and fact.  Faith is trusting God. Superstition is trying to manipulate Her.