I spoke to a FLight Deck Engineer who invented the display layout - & he told me that this is the way the thing is supposed to work ! IE That you can predictively reach a particular altitude based on the indicated VS - IE The reason they are juxtiposed - is so that the VS indicator simultaneously points to the altitude tape & to a particular altitude at that - I was mildly flabbergasted - because I too have been familiar with glass for years - but was unaware of this relationship between the two displays - particularly when Honeywell put a dial VS display in the corner on many A/Ps ..I have never seen the dual interrelated display concept trained to as a training point though ..