Most I have seen have done pantos right over the fronts - it's not distracting and it keeps the batting from shifting. You'll need to do something on the shirts, they're usually too big to quilt that far away.
I did one for a customer that had some sort of hard plastic !@#$ on the fronts of the shirts. I had to do a meander from the front of the machine to keep from hitting that hard plastic and doing unspeakable things to my LA.