thanks for the suggestion, we'll see what we can do in the next design. While it's clear on Bela that there are plenty of parts around there, it may not be so obvious on BelaMini, where space really is at a premium and parts are hidden on the bottom layer: there is not a lot of wiggle room! Also, the audio connectors are not the only issue there: getting analog and digital I/O from the other headers would also encounter the same issue and there is no way to make those connectors horizontal. That's the tradeoff of building something that is maker-friendly and at the same time small. We figured that anyone really concerned about size would have to spin their own "over-cape" PCB to break out the relevant connections and possibly incorporate connectors (similar to what we do on Pepper).
By the way, if you are particularly concerned about space and you are working with Bela Mini, we have a small number of partly-assembled units that we keep for these occasions: you can buy the Bela Mini cape without any through-hole headers installed so you can keep the vertical footprint as small as possible!
