I like your analysis of Exodus.  I will have to look at that more closely.  I don't think that you have to read the entirety of Exodus as Leithart's "act like Egypt and you'll be treated like Egypt" though that is certainly there.  Perhaps instead there is a death-and-resurrection motif in that structure, or perhaps Moses just wants to emphasize the significance of these crisis moments for the next generation.

As far as your question goes, it seems to me that on the one hand, yes, we should make sure that the place that we worship is beautiful and glorious, as we are able (we wouldn't fault the early church for worshipping in the catacombs, and we would note that they did beautify them).  On the other hand, it would be a mistake to equate "tabernacle/temple" with "church building" (no matter how glorious), eschatologically speaking.  The tabernacle was never merely "the place where covenant renewal happened" (though it was also that) but it was Yahweh's palace, the dwelling place of God, a traveling Sinai, a pattern of heaven, and (especially) a symbol of the nation that God among whom God would dwell.  It is the church, not the buildings in which the church meets for covenant renewal (again, which ought to be as glorious and beautiful as we can manage) that fulfills the intention of the tabernacle in Exodus.

It is hot and steamy in South Texas.  Yuck.

Sweet chiasm. Reminds me of one text-linguistic analysis I saw for the book of Hebrews, where the covenant warning of Hebrews 6 is the chiastic center of the whole book. (Which, incidentally, is the other book in the Bible which has much to say about the tabernacle.)

Rainy in Central Texas. (Rain is good right?)