Ahoy Steven,
Dix's style is so very modern that I have trouble seeing a gaff on this. I assume that as he is involved he's thought about the weights aloft and all that but I must say that your aesthetic daring leaves me breathless.
Anyway, one thought not always shared: The topmast is a great place for that safety feature known as progressive failure. That is, make it light and lightly stayed so that it will break off harmlessly if you are so inprudent as to carry sail too long into a breeze. I think you can find good references to this in Phil Bolger's remarks about his design work on the replica of HMS Rose.
If you make a sliding or retracting bow sprit - ala Thames barges - you will save much money in dock fees as they must charge by the liniar feet you actually take up, not LOD or LWL.
Regretably, all the really handsome gaff cutters I know are for such different hull types and are US NA's so you'd have a hard time getting access to the drawings anyway. But if by odd chance the posthumous collection called "Pete Culler's Boats" is in a library near you, look to the husky and very yachty looking cutter near the end of the sloops and cutters section.
Er - - maybe not such a grand thought. Culler and most traditional gaff rig designers within my ken matched their rigs with hulls of quite noticable drag (draft well aft, not drag like resistance) and such a rig would likely overpower the steering dynamics of Dix's design.
Is Dix indulging you in this as a way to get you to fully accept the design as he made it, or is he really this openminded? Are you making aesthetic changes to the above water hull lines to harmonize better with the gaff rig?
G'luck
Ian
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