There are some space requirements but they are not critical. When I said ESP32, I mean the wrover board connected to female headers soldered in the PCB.
About a discrete driver, I don’t know exactly what you mean but I imagine it is what we have already. They have a functional version working with IR2184 drivers, a bunch of other diodes, resistors and capacitors, and with IRF2807 MOSFETS. I just want now to look for alternatives to make the circuit more reliable, smaller, easer to test, and easer to make it not overheat. When I bought the simple FOC board with the L6234 I could learn it and use it so easily that I started to search for solutions to make a high power circuit as simple as the L6234.