Interesting story behind the Vatican II changes to the Mass. I didn’t know that some of the reforms were for the benefit of Protestants:

Many of Bugnini’s reforms were aimed at appeasing non-Catholics, and changes emulating Protestant services were made, including placing altars to face the people instead of a sacrifice toward the liturgical east. As he put it, “We must strip from our … Catholic liturgy everything which can be the shadow of a stumbling block for our separated brethren, that is, for the Protestants.”

And I thought that Benedict made an interesting point about which way the clergy should face:

At the beginning of this decade, Benedict (then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) wrote: “The turning of the priest toward the people has turned the community into a self-enclosed circle. In its outward form, it no longer opens out on what lies ahead and above, but is closed in on itself.”

I can understand what he’s saying here and it’s an interesting picture of what goes on in some Evangelical churches — man-centered worship services but in other churches, thankfully, the focus is squarely on the only One who deserves our worship.
I think it also depends on what the clergy see when they look out over the congregation. God is present among his people for we are the building blocks for the temple of God:

ESV Eph. 2:19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.

This is a reminder that the people present are included in the worship service since it is the assembly that constitute the church not the physical structure and that worship is part of the believer’s calling as well (John 4:21-23). Worship service is not just a show that’s put on each week for our entertainment (that’s why we don’t clap after musical interludes of any kind — except when the children sing :-).